W'llli Ili'lJ! 

m 





Class . 
Book. 
GopyiiglitN" 



aa 



£..ZJL£J2 



COPYRIGHT DEPOS!'!^ 




Caroline Cowles Richards 

(From a daguerreotype taken in 1860) 



CJ2^^J^i^^ ^Uj-^a C3:^a>i^€vvu_ e-^v^>€^.. i,^ 



VILLAGE LIFE IN 
AMERICA 

1852-1872 

INCLUDING THE PERIOD OF THE 

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AS TOLD IN 

THE DIARY OF A SCHOOL-GIRL 

By 
CAROLINE COWLES RICHARDS 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

MARGARET E. SANGSTER 



NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1913 



/-/ -' ^' 



Ay 



'!zCc,i 



Copyright, 1908, 

BY 

CAROLINE RICHARDS CLARKE 
Copyright, 19 13, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



THE QUINN d BOOEN CO. PRESS 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



©Ci.A:;50739 



^f^ 



To 

My dear brothers, 
JAMES AND JOHN, 

who, by precept and example, 

have encouraged me, 

and to my beloved sister, 

ANNA, 

whose faith and affection 

have been my chief inspiration, 

this little volume 

is lovingly inscribed. 



Naples, N. Y. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction, by Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster . . ix 

The Villages xiii 

The Villagers xiv 

1852. — Family Notes — Famous School-girls — Hoop 

Skirts i 

1853. — Runaways — Bible Study — Essays — Catechism 10 
1854. — Lake Picnic — Pyramid of Beauty — Governor 

Clark 20 

1855. — Preachers — James and John— Votes for Women 43 
1856. — The Fire— Sleighing and Prayer — Father's 

Advice 52 

1857. — Truants and Pickles — Candle Stories — The 

Snuffers 71 

1858.— Tableaux and Charades— Spiritual Seance . 95 

1859.— E. M. Morse— Letter from the North Pole . 106 
i86o.~Gymnastics — Troublesome Comforts . . .118 
1861. — President Lincoln's Inauguration — Civil War — 

School Enthusiasm 130 

1862. — Gough Lectures — President's Call for Three 

Hundred Thousand Men — Mission Zeal . . 138 
1863. — A Soldier's Death — General M'Clellan's Let- 
ter—President Lincoln's Address at Gettys- 
burg 148 

1864.— Grandfather Beals' Death— Anna Graduates 162 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1865.— President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address 

— Fall of Richmond — Murder of Lincoln , .176 

1866. — Freedman's Fair — General Grant and Admiral 

Farragut Visit Canandaigua 200 

1867. — Brother John and Wife Go to London — Lecture 

BY Charles Dickens 208 

1871. — Hon. George H. Stuart Speaks in Canandai- 
gua— A Large Collection .... 210 

1872. — Grandmother Beals' Death — Biography . .211 

1880.— Anna's Marriage 22s 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Caroline Covvles Richards Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Grandfather Beals 8 

Grandmother Beals 8 

Mr. Noah T. Clarke 30 

Miss Upham 30 

First Congregational Church 38 

Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D 54 

Judge Henry W. Taylor 54 

Miss Zilpha Clark 54 

"Frankie Richardson" 54 

Horace Finley 54 

Tom Eddy and Eugene Stone 66 

"Uncle David Dudley Field" 66 

Grandmother's Rocking Chair 88 

The Grandfather Clock 88 

Hon. Francis Granger 100 

Mr. Gideon Granger 100 

The Old Canandaigua Academy 124 

The Ontario Female Seminary 132 

" Old Friend Burling " . . . 138 

Madame Anna Bishop 138 

"Abbie Clark and I Had Our Ambrotypes Taken To- 
day" 152 

"Mr. Noah T. Clarke's Brother and I" . . . 152 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

After this book was in type, on March 29, 1913, 
the author, Mrs. CaroHne Richards Clarke, died at 
Naples, New York. 



INTRODUCTION 

The Diary of Caroline Cowles Richards fell into 
my hands, so to speak, out of space. I had no 
previous acquaintance with the author, and I sat 
down to read the book one evening in no especial 
mood of anticipation. From the first page to the 
last my attention was riveted. To call it fascinating 
barely expresses the quality of the charm. Caroline 
Richards and her sister Anna, having early lost 
their mother, were sent to the home of her parents 
in Canandaigua, New York, where they were 
brought up in the simplicity and sweetness of a re- 
fined household, amid Puritan traditions. The chil- 
dren were allowed to grow as plants do, absorbing 
vitality from the atmosphere around them. What- 
ever there was of gracious formality in the man- 
ners of aristocratic people of the period, came to 
them as their birthright, while the spirit of the 
truest democracy pervaded their home. Of this 
Diary it is not too much to say that it is a revela- 
tion of childhood in ideal conditions. 

The Diary begins in 1852, and is continued until 
1872. Those of us who lived in the latter half of 
the nineteenth century recall the swift transitions, 
the rapid march of science and various changes in 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

social customs, and as we meet allusions to these 
in the leaves of the girl's Diary we live our past 
over again with peculiar pleasure. 

Far more has been told us concerning the South 
during the Civil War t1ian concerning the North. 
Fiction has found the North a less romantic field, 
and the South has been chosen as the background of 
many a stirring novel, while only here and there 
has an author been found who has known the deep- 
hearted loyalty of the Northern States and woven 
the story into narrative form. The girl who grew 
up in Canandaigua was intensely patriotic, and from 
day to day vividly chronicled what she saw, felt, 
and heard. Her Diary is a faithful record of im- 
pressions of that stormy time in which the nation 
underwent a baptism of fire. The realism of her 
paragraphs is unsurpassed. 

Beyond the personal claim of the Diary and the 
certainty to give pleasure to a host of readers, the 
author appeals to Americans in general because of 
her family and her friends. Her father and grand- 
father were Presbyterian ministers. Her Grand- 
father Richards was for twenty years President of 
Auburn Theological Seminary. Her brother, John 
Morgan Richards of London, has recently given to 
the world the Life and Letters of his gifted and 
lamented daughter, Pearl Mary-Terese Craigie, 
known best as John Oliver Hobbes. The famous 
Field brothers and their father. Rev. David Dudley 
Field, and their nephew, Justice David J. Brewer, 



INTRODUCTION xl 

of the United States Supreme Court, were her kins- 
men. Miss Hannah Upham, a distinguished 
teacher mentioned in the Diary, belongs to the 
group of American women to whom we owe the 
initiative of what we now^ choose to call the higher 
education of the sex. She, in common with Mary 
Lyon, Emma Willard, and Eliza Bayliss Wheaton, 
gave a forward impulse to the liberal education of 
W'Omen, and our privilege is to keep their memory 
green. They are to be remembered by what they 
liave done and by the tender reminiscences found 
here and there like pressed flowers in a herbarium, 
in such pages as these. 

Miss Richards' marriage to Mr. Edmund C. 
Clarke occurred in 1866. Mr. Clarke is a veteran 
of the Civil War and a Commander in the Grand 
Army of the Republic. His brother, Noah T. 
Clarke, was the Principal of Canandaigua Academy 
for the long term of forty years. The dignified, 
amusing and remarkable personages who were Mrs. 
Clarke's contemporaries, teachers, or friends are 
pictured in her Diary just as they were, so that w^e 
meet them on the street, in the drawing-room, in 
church, at prayer-meeting, anywhere and every- 
where, and grasp their hands as if we, too, were 
in their presence. 

Wherever this little book shall go it will carr}^ 
good cheer. Fun and humor sparkle through the 
story of this childhood and girlhood so that the 
reader wuU be cheated of ennui, and the sallies of 



xil INTRODUCTION 

the little sister will provoke mirth and laughter to 
brighten dull days. I have read thousands of books. 
I have never read one which has given me more 
delight than this. 

Margaret E. Sangster. 

Glen Ridge, New Jersey, 
June, 191 1. 



THE VILLAGES 

CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK.— A beautiful village, 
the county seat of Ontario County, situated at the 
foot of Canandaigua Lake, which is called "the 
gem of the inland lakes " of Western New York, 
about 325 miles from New York city. 

NAPLES, NEW YORK.— A small village at the head 
of Canandaigua Lake, famous for its vine-clad 
hills and unrivaled scenery. 

GENEVA, NEW YORK. — A beautiful town about 16 
miles from Canandaigua. 

EAST BLOOMFIELD, NEW YORK. — An ideal 
farming region and suburban village about 8 miles 
from Canandaigua. 

PENN YAN, NEW YORK.— The county seat of 
Yates County, a grape center upon beautiful Lake 
Keuka. 

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.— A flourishing manu- 
facturing city, growing rapidly, less than 30 miles 
from Canandaigua, and 120 miles from Niagara 
Falls. 

AUBURN, NEW YORK.— Noted for its Theological 
Seminary, nearly one hundred years old, and for 
being the home of William H. Seward and other 
American Statesmen. 



THE VILLAGERS 



Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS BEALS, 



Grandfather and Grand- 
mother 

CAROLINE AND ANNA ) Grandchildren of Mr. and 

JAMES AND JOHN RICHARDS \ Mrs. Beals 
-AUNT ANN" 
-AUNT MARY" CARR 



"AUNT GLORIANNA" 
"UNCLE HENRY" 
"UNCLE THOMAS" . 
Rev. O. E. DAGGETT, D.D. 

NOAH T. CLARKE 

Hon. FRANCIS GRANGER . 
General JOHN A. GRANGER 
GIDEON GRANGER . 
ALBERT GRANGER . 
JOHN GREIG . . . . 

MYRON H. CLARK 

JUDGE H. W. TAYLOR 

E. M. MORSE . . . . 



Miss ZILPHA CLARKE 
Miss CAROLINE CHESEBRO 
Mrs. GEORGE WILLSON . 
Miss HANNAH UPHAM 

Mr. FRED THOMPSON 



Sons and daughters of 
Mr. and Mrs. Beals 



Pastor of Canandaigua Con- 
gregational Church 

Principal Canandaigua 

Academy for Boys 
Postmaster-General, U.S. A. 
Of New York State Militia 
Son of Hon. Francis 
Son of General Granger 

Wealthy Scotsman longtime 
resident of Canandaigua 

Governor, State of New York 

Prominent lawyer and jurist 

A leading lawyer in Canan- 
daigua 

School teacher of note 
t Well-known writers 

Eminent instructress and 
lady principal of Ontario 
Female Seminary 

Prominent resident, married 
MissMaryClark. daughter 
of Governor Myron H. 
Clark. 



XIV 



THE VILLAGERS 



XV 



School Boys 



WILLIAM T. SCHLEY . 
HORACE M. FINLEY . 
ALBERT MURRAY 
S. GURNEY LAPHAM . 
CHARLES COY 
ELLSWORTH DAGGETT 
CHARLIE PADDOCK . 
MERRITT C. WILLCOX 
WILLIAM H. ADAMS . 
GEORGE N. WILLIAMS 
WILLIS P. FISKE . 
EDMUND C. CLARKE . 



Residing with parents in 
^ Canandaigua 



>- Law Students 

[• Teachers in Academy 



School Girls 



LOUISA FIELD 
MARY WHEELER . 
EMMA WHEELER . 
LAURA CHAPIN . 
JULIA PHELPS 
MARY PAUL . 
BESSIE SEYMOUR . 
LUCILLA FIELD . 
MARY FIELD . 
ABBIE CLARK 
SUSIE DAGGETT . 
FRANKIE RICHARDSON 
FANNY GAYLORD . 
MARY COY 
HELEN COY . 
HATTIE PADDOCK 
SARAH ANTES 
LOTTIE LAPHAM . 
CLARA WILSON . 
FANNIE PALMER . 
RITIE TYLER . 



I Residing with parents in 
^ Canandaigua 



VILLAGE LIFE IX AMERICA 

1852 

Caxaxdaigua. X. Y. 

XovtV}ibrr 21. 1S52. — I am ten years old to-day. 
and I think I will write a journal and tell who I 
am and what I am doing. I have li\-ed with my 
Grandfather and Grandmother Beals ever since I 
was seven years old. and Anna. too. since she was 
four. Our brothers, James and John, came too. 
but they are at East Bloomfield at Mr. Stephen 
Clark's Academy. Miss Laura Clark oi Xaples is 
their teacher. 

Anna and I go to school at District Xo. 11. Mr. 
James C. Cross is our teacher, and some of the 
scholars say he is cross by name and cross by nature, 
but I like him. He gave me a book by the name 
of " Xoble Deeds of American Women.'" for reward 
of merit, in my reading class. To-day. a nice old 
gentleman, by the name of Mr. William Wood, 
visited our school. He is Mrs. Xat Gorham's uncle, 
and \\*ood Street is named for him. He had a 
beautiful pear in his hand and said he would give 
it to the boy or girl who could spell '" virgaloo," 
for that was the name of the pear. I spelt it that 
way, but it was not right. A little boy. named 



2 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1852 

William Schley, spelt it right and he got the pear, 
I wish I had, but I can't even remember now how 
he spelt it. If the pear was as hard as the name I 
don't believe any one would want it, but I don't see 
how they happened to give such a hard name to 
such a nice pear. Grandfather says perhaps Mr. 
Wood will bring in a Seckle pear some day, so I 
had better be ready for him. 

Grandmother told us such a nice story to-day I 
am going to write it down in my journal. I think 
I shall write a book some day. Aliss Caroline 
Chesebro did, and I don't see why I can't. If I do, 
I shall put this story in it. It is a true story and 
better than any I found in three story books 
Grandmother gave us to read this week, '' Peep of 
Day," '' Line Upon Line," and '' Precept Upon Pre- 
cept," but this story was better than them all. One 
night Grandfather was locking the front door at 
nine o'clock and he heard a queer sound, like a baby 
crying. So he unlocked the door and found a 
bandbox on the stoop, and the cry seemed to come 
from inside of it. So he took it up and brought it 
into the dining-room and called the two girls, who 
had just gone upstairs to bed. They came right 
down and opened the box, and there was a poor 
little girl baby, crying as hard as could be. Th^y 
took it out and rocked it and sung to it and got 
some milk and fed it and then sat up all night 
with it, by the fire. There was a paper pinned on 
the baby's dress with her name on it, " Lily T. 



1852] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 3 

LaMott," and a piece of poetry called " Pity the 
Poor Orphan." The next morning, Grandfather 
went to the overseer of the poor and he said it 
should be taken to the county house, so our hired 
man got the horse and buggy, and one of the girls 
carried the baby and they took it away. There was 
a piece in the paper about it, and Grandmother 
pasted it into her '' Jay's Morning and Evening 
Exercises." and showed it to us. It said, " A De- 
posit After Banking Hours." '' Two suspicious 
looking females were seen about town in the after- 
noon, one of them carrying an infant. They took 
a train early in the morning without the child. 
They probably secreted themselves in Mr. Beals' 
yard and if he had not taken the box in they would 
have carried it somewhere else." When Grand- 
father told the clerks in the bank about it next 
morning, Mr. Bunnell, who lives over by Mr. Dag- 
gett's, on the park, said, if it had been left at some 
people's houses it would not have been sent away. 
Grandmother says they heard that the baby was 
adopted afterwards by some nice people in Geneva. 
People must think this is a nice place for children, 
for they had eleven of their own before we came. 
Mrs. McCoe was here to call this afternoon and she 
looked at us and said : "It must be a great re- 
sponsibility, Mrs. Beals." Grandmother said she 
thought " her strength would be equal to her day." 
That is one of her favorite verses. She said Mrs. 
McCoe never had any children of her own and per- 



4 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1852 

haps that is the reason she looks so sad at us. Per- 
haps some one will leave a bandbox and a baby at 
her door some dark night. 

Saturday. — Our brother John drove over from 
East Bloomfield to-day to see us and brought Julia 
Smedley with him, who is just my age. John lives 
at Mr. Ferdinand Beebe's and goes to school and 
Julia is Mr. Beebe's niece. They make quantities 
of maple sugar out there and they brought us a 
dozen little cakes. They were splendid. I offered 
John one and he said he would rather throw it over 
the fence than to eat it. I can't understand that. 
Anna had the faceache to-day and I told her that 
I would be the doctor and make her a ginger poul- 
tice. I thought I did it exactly right but when I 
put it on her face she shivered and said : " Carrie, 
you make lovely poultices only they are so cold." 
I suppose I ought to have warmed it. 

Tuesday. — Grandfather took us to ride this after- 
noon and let us ask Bessie Seymour to go with us. 
We rode on the plank road to Chapinville and had 
to pay 2 cents at the toll gate, both ways. We met 
a good many people and Grandfather bowed to them 
and said, '' How do you do, neighbor? " 

We asked him what their names were and he said 
he did not know. We wxnt to see Mr. Munson, 
who runs the mill at Chapinville. He took us 
through the mill and let us get weighed and took 



1852] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 5 

us over to his house and out into the barn-yard to 
see the pigs and chickens and we also saw a colt 
which was one day old. Anna just wrote in her 
journal that '' it was a very amusing site." 

Sunday. — Rev. Mr. Kendall, of East Bloomfield, 
preached to-day. His text was from Job 26, 14: 
'' Lo these are parts of his ways, but how little a 
portion is heard of him." I could not make out 
what he meant. He is James' and John's minister. 

Wednesday. — Captain Menteith was at our house 
to dinner to-day and he tried to make Anna and me 
laugh by snapping his snuff-box under the table. 
He is a very jolly man, I think. 

Thursday. — Father and Uncle Edward Richards 
came to see us yesterday and took us down to Mr. 
Corson's store and told us we could have anything 
we wanted. So we asked for several kinds of 
candy, stick candy and lemon drops and bulls' eyes, 
and then they got us two rubber balls and two jump- 
ing ropes with handles and two hoops and sticks to 
roll them with and two red carnelian rings and two 
bracelets. We enjoyed getting them very much, 
and expect to have lots of fun. They went out to 
East Bloomfield to see James and John, and father 
is going to take them to New Orleans. We hate 
to have them go. 



6 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1852 

Friday. — We asked Grandmother if we could 
have some hoop skirts Hke the seminary girls and 
she said no, we were not old enough. When we 
were downtown Anna bought a reed for 10 cents 
and ran it into the hem of her underskirt and says 
she is going to wear it to school to-morrow. I 
think Grandmother will laugh out loud for once, 
when she sees it, but I don't think Anna will wear 
it to school or anywhere else. She wouldn't want 
to if she knew how terrible it looked. 

I threaded a dozen needles on a spool of thread 
for Grandmother, before I went to school, so that 
she could slip them along and use them as she needed 
them. She says it is a great help. 

Grandmother says I will have a great deal to 
answer for, because Anna looks up to me so and 
tries to do everything that I do and thinks whatever 
I say is '' gospel truth." The other day the girls 
at school were disputing with her about something 
and she said, '' It is so, if it ain't so, for Calline 
said so." I shall have to '' toe the mark," as Grand- 
father says, if she keeps watch of me all the time 
and walks in my footsteps. 

We asked Grandmother this evening if we could 
sit out in the kitchen with Bridget and Hannah and 
the hired man, Thomas Holleran. She said we 
could take turns and each stay ten minutes by the 
clock. It gave us a little change. I read once that 
" variety is the spice of life." They sit around the 
table and each one has a candle, and Thomas reads 



1852] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 7 

aloud to the girls while they sew. He and Bridget 
are Catholics, but Elannah is a member of our 
Church. The girls have lived here always, I think, 
but I don't know for sure, as I have not lived here 
always myself, but we have to get a new hired man 
sometimes. Grandmother says if you are as good 
to your girls as you are to yourself they will stay a 
long time. I am sure that is Grandmother's rule. 
Mrs. McCarty, who lives on Brook Street (some 
people call it Cat Alley but Grandmother says that is 
not proper), washes for us Mondays, and Grand- 
mother always has a lunch for her at eleven o'clock 
and goes out herself to see that she sits down and 
eats it. Mrs. McCarty told us Monday that Mrs. 
Brockle's niece was dead, who lives next door to her. 
Grandmother sent us over with some things for their 
comfort and told us to say that we were sorry they 
were in trouble. We went and when we came back 
Anna told Grandmother that I said, " Never mind, 
Mrs. Brockle, some day we will all be dead." I am 
sure that I said something better than that. 

JVedncsday. — Mr. Cross had us speak pieces to- 
day. He calls our names, and we walk on to the 
platform and toe the mark and make a bow and 
say what we have got to say. He did not know 
what our pieces were going to be and some of them 
said the same ones. Two boys spoke : *' The boy 
stood on the burning deck, whence all but him had 
fled." William Schley w^as one, and he spoke his 



8 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1852 

the best. When he said, '' The flames that Ht the 
battle wreck shone round him o'er the dead," we 
could almost see the fire, and when he said, '' My 
father, must I stay?" we felt like telling him, no, 
he needn't. He is going to make a good speaker. 
Mr. Cross said so. Albert Murray spoke " Excel- 
sior," and Horace Finley spoke nice, too. My 
piece was, ''Why, Phoebe, are you come so soon? 
Where are your berries, child? " Emma Van Ars- 
dale spoke the same one. We find them all in our 
reader. Sometime I am going to speak, '' How does 
the water come down at Ladore? " Splashing and 
flashing and dashing and clashing and all that — it 
rhymes, so it is easy to remember. 

We played snap the whip at recess to-day 
and I was on the end and w^as snapped off against 
the fence. It hurt me so, that /\nna cried. It is 
not a very good game for girls, especially for the 
one on the end. 

Tuesday. — I could not keep a journal for two 
weeks, because Grandfather and Grandmother have 
been very sick and we were afraid something dread- 
ful was going to happen. We are so glad that they 
are well again. Grandmother w^as sick upstairs and 
Grandfather in the bedroom dow^nstairs, and w^e 
carried messages back and forth for them. Dr. 
Carr and Aunt Mary came over twice every day 
and said they had the influenza and the inflamma- 
tion of the Iun2:s. It was lonesome for us to sit 



,^^^^' 




m 



o 




PQ 



1852] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 9 

down to the table and just have Hannah wait on us. 
We did not have any blessing because there was no 
one to ask it. Anna said she could, but I was afraid 
she would not say it right, so I told her she needn't. 
We had such lumps in our throats we could not eat 
much and we cried ourselves to sleep two or three 
nights. Aunt Ann Field took us home with her one 
afternoon to stay all night. We liked the idea and 
Mary and Louisa and Anna and I planned what we 
would play in the evening, but just as it was dark our 
hired man. Patrick McCarty. drove over after us. 
He said Grandfather and Grandmother could not get 
to sleep till they saw the children and bid them good- 
night. So we rode home with him. We never 
stayed anywhere away from home all night that we 
can remember. When Grandmother came down- 
stairs the first time she was too weak to walk, so 
she sat on each step till she got down. When 
Grandfather saw her. he smiled and said to us : 
"When she will, she will, you may depend on't ; 
and when she won't she won't, and that's the 
end on't." But we knew all the time that he was 
very glad to see her. 



^H3 

Sunday, March 20. — It snowed so, that we could 
not go to church to-da}- and it was the longest day 
I ever spent. The only excitement was seeing the 
snowplow drawn by two horses, go up on this 
side of the street and down on the other. Grand- 
father put on his long cloak with a cape, which he 
wears in real cold weather, and went. We w^anted 
to pull some long stockings over our shoes and go 
too but Grandmother did not think it was best. 
She gave us the '' Dairyman's Daughter " and 
" Jane the Young Cottager," by Leigh Richmond, to 
read. I don't see how they happened to be so aw- 
fully good. Anna says they died of " early piety," 
but she did not say it very loud. Grandm-other said 
she would give me 10 cents if I vvould learn the 
verses in the New England Primer that John Rogers 
left for his wdfe and nine small children and one 
at the breast, w^hen he was burned at the stake, at 
Smithfield, England, in 1555. One verse is, "I 
leave you here a little book for you to look upon that 
you may see your father's face when he is dead and 
gone." It is a very long piece but I got it. Grand- 
mother says '' the blood of the martyrs is the seed 
of the church." Anna learned 

10 



i853] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA ii 

" In Adam's fall we sinned all. 
My Book and heart shall never part. 
The Cat doth play and after slay. 
The Dosf doth bite a thief at night." 



When she came to the end of it and said, 

" Zaccheus he, did climb a tree, his Lord to -ee." 

she said she heard some one say, " The tree broke 
down and let him fall and he did not see his Lord 
at all." Grandmother said it was very wacked in- 
deed and she hoped Anna would try and forget it. 

April I. — Grandmother sent me up into the little 
chamber to-day to straighten things and get the 
room ready to be cleaned. I found a little book 
called '^ Child's Pilgrim Progress, Illustrated," that 
I had never seen before. I got as far as Giant 
Despair when Anna came up and said Grandmother 
sent her to see w^hat I was doing, and she went 
back and told her that I w^as sitting on the floor in 
the midst of books and papers and was so absorbed 
in " Pilgrim's Progress " that I had made none my- 
self. It must be a good book for Grandmother did 
not say a word. Father sent us " Gulliver's Trav- 
els " and there is a gilt picture on the green cover, 
of a giant with legs astride and little Lilliputians 
standing underneath, who do not come up to his 
knees. Grandmother did not like the picture, so 



12 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1853 

she pasted a piece of pink calico over it, so we could 
only see the giant from his waist up. I love the 
story of Cinderella and the poem, '' 'Twas the night 
before Christmas," and I am sorry that there are 
no fairies and no Santa Claus. 

We go to school to Miss Zilpha Clark in her own 
house on Gibson Street. Other girls who go are 
Laura Chapin, Julia Phelps, Mary Paul, Bessie Sey- 
mour, Lucilla and Mary Field, Louisa Benjamin, 
Nannie Corson, Kittie Marshall, Abbie Clark and 
several other girls. I like Abbie Clark the best of 
all the girls in school excepting of course my sister 
Anna. 

Before I go to school every morning I read three 
chapters in the Bible. I read three every day and 
five on Sunday and that takes me through the Bible 
in a year. Those I read this morning were the first, 
second and third chapters of Job. The first was 
about Eliphaz reproveth Job; second, Benefit of 
God's correction; third, Job justifieth his complaint. 
I then learned a text to say at school. I went to 
school at quarter to nine and recited my text and 
we had prayers and then proceeded with the busi- 
ness of the day. Just before school w^as out, we re- 
cited in " Science of Things Familiar," and in Dic- 
tionar}^ and then we had calisthenics. 

We go through a great many figures and sing " A 
Life on the Ocean Wave," '' What Fairy-like Music 
Steals Over the Sea," '' Lightly Row, Lightly Row, 
O'er the Glassy Waves We Go," and " O Come, 



i853] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 13 

Come Away," and other songs. Mrs. Judge Taylor 
wrote one song on purpose for us. 



May I. — I arose this morning about the usual 
time and read my three chapters in the Bible and 
had time for a walk in the garden before breakfast. 
The polyanthuses are just beginning to blossom and 
they border all the walk up and down the garden. 
I went to school at quarter of nine, but did not get 
along very well because we played too much. We 
had two new scholars to-day, Miss Archibald and 
Miss Andrews, the former about seventeen and the 
latter about fifteen. In the afternoon old Mrs. Kin- 
ney made us a visit, but she did not stay very long. 
In dictionary class I got up sixth, although I had 
not studied my lesson very much. 

July. — Hiram Goodrich, who lives at Mr. Myron 
H. Clark's, and George and Wirt Wheeler ran away 
on Sunday to seek their fortunes. When they did 
not come back every one was frightened and started 
out to find them. They set out right after Sunday 
School, taking their pennies which had been given 
them for the contribution, and were gone several 
days. They were finally found at Palmyra. When 
asked why they had run aw^ay, one replied that he 
thought it was about time they saw something of 
the world. We heard that Mr. Clark had a few 
moments' private conversation with Hiram in the 



14 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1853 

barn and Mr. Wheeler the same with his boys and 
we do not think they will go traveling on their own 
hook again right off. Miss Upham lives right 
across the street from them and she was telling little 
Morris Bates that he must fight the good fight of 
faith and he asked her if that was the fight that 
Wirt Wheeler fit. She probably had to make her 
instructions plainer after that. 

July. — Every Saturday our cousins, Lucilla and 
Mary and Louisa Field, take turns coming to Grand- 
mother's to dinner. It was Mary's turn to-day, but 
she w^as sick and couldn't come, so Grandmother 
told us that we could dress up and make some calls 
for her. We were very glad. She told us to go 
to Mrs. Gooding's first, so we did and she was glad 
to see us and gave us some cake she had just made. 
Then we went on to Mr. Greig's. We walked up 
the high steps to the front door and rang the bell 
and Mr. Alexander came. We asked if Mrs. Greig 
and Miss Chapin were at home and he said yes, and 
asked us into the parlor. We looked at the paint- 
ings on the wall and looked at ourselves in the long 
looking-glass, while we were waiting. Mrs. Irving 
came in first. She was very nice and said I looked 
like her niece, Julie Jeffrey. I hope I do, for I 
would like to look like her. Mrs. Greig and Miss 
Chapin came in and were very glad to see us, and 
took us out into the greenhouse and showed us all 
the beautiful plants. When we said we would have 



1853] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 15 

to go they said good-bye and sent love to Grand- 
mother and told us to call again. I never knew 
Anna to act as polite as she did to-day. Then we 
went to see Mrs. Judge Phelps and Miss Eliza 
Chapin, and they were very nice and gave us some 
flowers from their garden. Then we went on to 
Miss Caroline Jackson's, to see Mrs. Holmes. 
Sometimes she is my Sunday School teacher, and 
she says she and our mother used to be great friends 
at the seminary. She said she was glad we came 
up and she hoped we would be as good as our mother 
was. That is what nearly every one says. On our 
way back, we called on Mrs. Dana at the Academy, 
as she is a friend of Grandmother. She is Mrs. 
Noah T. Clarke's mother. After that, we went 
home and told Grandmother we had a very pleasant 
time calling on our friends and they all asked us to 
come again. 

Sunday, August 15. — To-day the Sacrament of 
the Lord's Supper was held in our church, and Mr. 
Daggett baptized several little babies. They looked 
so cunning when he took them in his arms and not 
one of them cried. I told Grandmother when we 
got home that I remembered when Grandfather 
Richards baptized me in Auburn, and when he gave 
me back to mother he said, " Blessed little lambkin, 
you'll never know your grandpa." She said I was 
mistaken about remembering it, for he died before 
I was a year old, but I had heard it told so many 



i6 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1853 

times I thought I remembered it. Probably that 
is the way it was but I know it happened. 

Novcmhcr 22. — I wrote a composition to-day, 
and the subject was, *' Which of the Seasons Is the 
Pleasantest? " Anna asked Grandmother what she 
should write about, and Grandmother said she 
thought '' A Contented Mind " would be a very good 
subject, but Anna said she never had one and didn't 
know what it meant, so she didn't try to write any 
at all. 

A squaw walked right into our kitchen to-day with 
a blanket over her head and had beaded purses to 
sell. 

This is my composition which I wrote : '' Which 
of the seasons is the pleasantest ? Grim winter with 
its cold snows and whistling winds, or pleasant 
spring with its green grass and budding trees, or 
warm summer with its ripening fruit and beautiful 
flowers, or delightful autumn with its golden fruit 
and splendid sunsets? I think that I like all the 
seasons very well. In winter comes the blazing fire 
and Christmas treat. Then we can have sleigh- 
rides and play in the snow and generally get pretty 
cold noses and toses. In spring we have a great 
deal of rain and very often snow and therefore we 
do not enjoy that season as much as we would if it 
was dry weather, but we should remember that 
April showers bring May flowers. In summer we 
can hear the birds warbling their sweet notes in the 



i853] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 17 

trees and we have a great many strawberries, cur- 
rants, gooseberries and cherries, which I Hke very 
much, indeed, and I think summer is a very pleasant 
season. In autumn we have some of our choicest 
fruits, such as peaches, pears, apples, grapes and 
plums and plenty of flowers in the former part, but 
in the latter, about in November, the wind begins 
to blow and the leaves to fall and the flowers to 
wither and die. Then cold winter with its sleigh- 
rides comes round again." After I had written 
this I went to bed. Anna tied her shoe strings in 
hard knots so she could sit up later. 

November 23. — We read our compositions to-day 
and Miss Clark said mine was very good. One of 
the girls had a Prophecy for a composition and told 
what we were all going to be when we grew up. 
She said Anna Richards was going to be a mission- 
ary and Anna cried right out loud. I tried to com- 
fort her and told her it might never happen, so she 
stopped crying. 

November 24. — Three ladies visited our school 
to-day. Miss Phelps, Miss Daniels and Mrs. Clark. 
We had calisthenics and they liked them. 

Sunday. — Mr. Tousley preached to-day. Mr. 
Lamb is Superintendent of the Sunday School. 
Mr. Chipman used to be. Miss Mollie Bull played 
the melodeon. Mr. Fairchild is my teacher when he 



i8 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1853 

is there. He was not there to-day and Miss Mary 
Howell taught our class. I wish I could be as good 
and pretty as she is. We go to church morning 
and afternoon and to Sunday School, and learn 
seven verses every week and recite catechism and 
hymns to Grandmother in the evening. Grand- 
mother knows all the questions by heart, so she lets 
the book lie in her lap and she asks them with her 
eyes shut. She likes to hear us sing: 

" 'Tis religion that can give 
Sweetest pleasure while we live, 
'Tis religion can supply 
Solid comfort when we die." 

December i. — Grandfather asked me to read 
President Pierce's message aloud to him this even- 
ing. I thought it was very long and dry, but he 
said it was interesting and that I read it very well. 
I am glad he liked it. Part of it was about the 
Missouri Compromise and I didn't even know what 
it meant. 

December 8. — We are taking dictation lessons at 
school now. Miss Clark reads to us from the " Life 
of Queen Elizabeth " and we write it down in a 
book and keep it. She corrects it for us. I always 
spell " until " with two I's and she has to mark it 
every time. I hope I will learn how to spell it 
after a while. 



i853] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 19 

Saturday, Dcccmhcr 9. — We took our music les- 
sons to-day. Miss Hattie Heard is our teacher and 
she says we are getting along well. Anna prac- 
ticed her lesson over sixty-five times this morning 
before breakfast and can play " Mary to the 
Saviour's Tomb " as fast as a waltz. 

We chose sides and spelled down at school to-day. 
Julia Phelps and I stood up the last and both went 
down on the same word — eulogism. I don't see 
the use of that " e." Miss Clark gave us twenty 
words which we had to bring into some stories 
which we wrote. It was real fun to hear them. 
Every one was different. 

This evening as we sat before the fire place with 
Grandmother, she taught us how to play " Cat's 
Cradle,'' with a string on our fingers. 

December 25. — Uncle Edward Richards sent us 
a basket of lovely things from New York for 
Christmas. Books and dresses for Anna and me, 
a kaleidoscope, large cornucopias of candy, and 
games, one of them being battledore and shuttlecock. 
Grandmother says we will have to wait until spring 
to play it, as it takes so much room. I wish all the 
little girls in the world had an Uncle Edward. 



i8s4 

January i, 1854. — About fifty little boys and 
girls at intervals knocked at the front door to-day, 
to wish us Happy New Year. We had pennies and 
cakes and apples ready for them. The pennies, 
especially, seemed to attract them and we noticed the 
same ones several times. Aunt Mary Carr made 
lovely New Year cakes with a pretty flower stamped 
on before they were baked. 

February 4, 1854. — We heard to-day of the 
death of our little half-sister, Julia Dey Richards, in 
Penn Yan, yesterday, and I felt so sorry I couldn't 
sleep last night so I made up some verses about her 
and this morning wrote them down and gave them to 
Grandfather. He liked them so well he wanted me 
to show them to Miss Clark and ask her to revise 
them. I did and she said she would hand them to 
her sister Mary to correct. When she handed them 
back they were very much nicer than they were at 
first and Grandfather had me copy them and he 
pasted them into one of his Bibles to keep. 

Saturday. — Anna and I went to call on ]\Iiss Up- 
ham to-day. She is a real old lady and lives with 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 21 

her niece, Mrs. John Bates, on Gibson Street . Our 
mother used to go to school to her at the Seminary. 
Miss LTphani said to Anna, " Your mother was a 
lovely woman. You are not at all like her, dear." 
I told Anna she meant in looks I was sure, but Anna 
w^as afraid she didn't. 

Sunday. — Mr. Daggett's text this morning was 
the 22nd chapter of Revelation, i6th verse, *' I am 
the root and offspring of David and the bright and 
morning star." Mrs. Judge Taylor taught our Sun- 
day School class to-day and she said we ought not 
to read our S. S. books on Sunday. I always do. 
Mine to-day was entitled, " Cheap Repository Tracts 
by Hannah More," and it did not seem unreligious 
at all. 

Tuesday. — A gentleman visited our school to-day 
whom we had never seen. Miss Clark introduced 
him to us. When he came in. Miss Clark said, 
'' Young ladies," and we all stood up and bowed 
and said his name in concert. Grandfather says he 
would rather have us go to school to Miss Clark 
than any one else because she teaches us manners as 
well as books. We girls think that he is a very par- 
ticular friend of Miss Clark. He is very nice look- 
ing, but we don't know where he lives. Laura 
Chapin says he is an architect. I looked it up in 
the dictionary and it says one who plans or designs. 
I hope he does not plan to get married to Miss Clark 



22 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

and take her away and break up the school, but I 
presume he does, for that is usually the way. 

Monday. — There was a minister preached in our 
church last night and some people say he is the 
greatest minister in the w^orld. I think his name 
was Mr. Finney. Grandmother said I could go 
with our girl, Hannah White. We sat under the 
gallery, in Miss Antoinette Pierson's pew. There 
was a great crowd and he preached good. Grand- 
mother says that our mother was a Christian when 
she was ten years old and joined the church and she 
showed us some sermons that mother used to write 
down when she was seventeen years old, after she 
came home from church, and she has kept them all 
these years. I think children in old times were not 
as bad as they are now. 

Tuesday. — Mrs. Judge Taylor sent for me to 
come over to see her to-day. I didn't know what 
she wanted, but when I got there she said she wanted 
to talk and pray with me on the subject of religion. 
She took me into one of the wings. I never had 
been in there before and was frightened at first, but 
it was nice after I got used to it. After she prayed, 
she asked me to, but I couldn't think of anything 
but " Now I lay me down to sleep," and I was afraid 
she would not like that, so I didn't say anything. 
When I got home and told Anna, she said, '' Caro- 
line, I presume probably Mrs. Taylor wants you to 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 23 

be a Missionary, but I shan't let you go." I told her 
she needn't worry for I would have to stay at home 
and look after her. After school to-night I went 
out into Abbie Clark's garden with her and she 
taught me how to play '' mumble te peg." It is fun, 
but rather dangerous. I am afraid Grandmother 
won't give me a knife to play with. Abbie Clark 
has beautiful pansies in her garden and gave me 
some roots. 



April I. — This is April Fool's Day. It is not a 
very pleasant day, but I am not very pleasant either. 
I spent half an hour this morning very pleasantly 
writing a letter to my Father but just as I had fin- 
ished it, Grandmother told me something to write 
which I did not wish to and I spoke quite disre- 
spectfully, but I am real sorry and I won't do so 
any more. 

Lucilla and Louisa Field were over to our house 
to dinner to-day. We had a very good dinner in- 
deed. In the afternoon, Grandmother told me that 
I might go over to Aunt Ann's on condition that I 
would not stay, but I stayed too long and got my 
Indian rubbers real muddy and Grandmother did 
not like it. I then ate my supper and went to bed 
at ten minutes to eight o'clock. 

Monday, April 3. — I got up this morning at quar- 
ter before six o'clock. I then read my three chap- 



24 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

ters in the Bible, and soon after ate my breakfast, 
Avhich consisted of ham and eggs and buckwheat 
cakes. I then took a morning walk in the garden 
and rolled my hoop. I w^nt to school at quarter 
before 9 o'clock. Miss Clark has us recite a verse 
of scripture in response to roll call and my text for 
the morning was the 8th verse of the 6th chapter of 
Matthew, *' Be ye not therefore like unto them; for 
your Father knoweth what things ye have need of 
before ye ask him." We then had prayers. I then 
began to write my composition and we had recess 
soon after. In the afternoon I recited grammar, 
wrote my dictation lesson and Dictionary lesson. I 
was up third in my Dictionary class but missed two 
words, and instead of being third in the class, I was 
fifth. After supper I read my Sunday School book, 
'' A Shepherd's Call to the Lambs of his Flock." I 
went to bed as usual at ten minutes to 8 o'clock. 

April 4. — We went into our new schoolroom to- 
day at Miss Clark's school. It is a very nice room 
and much larger than the one Ave occupied before. 
Anna and I were sewing on our dolls' clothes this 
afternoon and we talked so much that finally Grand- 
mother said, *' the one that speaks first is the worst; 
and the one that speaks last is the best." We kept 
still for quite a while, which gave Grandmother a 
rest, but was very hard for us, especially Anna. 
Pretty soon Grandmother forgot and asked us a 
question, so we had the joke on her. Afterwards 



i854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 25 

Anna told me she would rather " be the worst," than 
to keep still so long again. 

Wednesday. — Grandmother sent Anna and me up 
to Butcher Street after school to-day to invite Chloe 
to come to dinner. I never saw so many black peo- 
ple as there are up there. We saw old Lloyd and 
black Jonathan and Dick Valentine and Jerusha and 
Chloe and Nackie. Nackie was pounding up stones 
into sand, to sell, to scour with. Grandmother 
often buys it of her. I think Chloe was surprised, 
but she said she would be ready, to-morrow, at 
eleven o'clock, when the carriage came for her. I 
should hate to be as fat as Chloe. I think she 
v;eighs 300. She is going to sit in Grandfather's 
big arm chair. Grandmother says. 

We told her we should think she would rather 
invite white ladies, but she said Chloe w^as a poor 
old slave and as Grandfather had gone to Saratoga 
she thought it was a good time to have her. She 
said God made of one blood all the people on the 
face of the earth, so we knew she would do it and 
we didn't say any more. When wt talk too much. 
Grandfather always says N. C (nuff ced). She 
sent a carriage for Chloe and she came and had a 
nice dinner, not in the kitchen either. Grandmother 
asked her if there was any one else she would like 
to see before she went home and she said, '' Yes, 
Miss Rebekah Gorham," so she told the coachman 
to take her down there and wait for her to make a 



26 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

call and then take her home and he did. Chloe said 
she had a very nice time, so probably Grandmother 
was all right as she generally is, but I could not be 
as good as she is, if I should try one hundred 
years. 

June. — Our cousin, George Bates, of Honolulu, 
came to see us to-day. He has one brother, Dudley, 
but he didn't come. George has just graduated 
from college and is going to Japan to be a doctor. 
He wrote such a nice piece in my album I must 
copy it, ** If I were a poet I would celebrate your 
virtues in rhyme, if I were forty years old, I would 
write a homily on good behavior ; being neither, I 
will quote two familiar lines which if taken as 
a rule of action will make you a good and happy 
woman : 

" Honor and shame from no condition rise. 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 

I think he is a very smart young man and will 
make a good doctor to the heathen. 

Saturday. — Grandfather took us dowm street to 
be measured for some new patten leather shoes at 
Mr. Ambler's. They are going to be very nice ones 
for best. We got our new summer hats from Mrs. 
Freshour's millinery and we wore them over to 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 27 

show to Aunt Ann and she said they were the very 
handsomest bonnets she had seen this year. 

Tuesday. — When we were on our way to school 
this morning we met a lot of people and girls and 
boys going to a picnic up the lake. They asked us 
to go, too, but we said we were afraid we could not. 
Mr. Alex. Howell said, " Tell your Grandfather I 
will bring you back safe and sound unless the boat 
goes to the bottom with all of us." So we went 
home and told Grandfather and much to our sur- 
prise he said we could go. We had never been on 
a boat or on the lake before. We went up to the 
head on the steamer '' Joseph Wood " and got off at 
Maxwell's Point. They had a picnic dinner and 
lots of good things to eat. Then we all went into 
the glen and climbed up through it. Mr. Alex. 
Howell and Mrs. Wheeler got to the top first and 
everybody gave three cheers. We had a lovely time 
riding back on the boat and told Grandmother we 
had the very best time we ever had in our whole 
lives. 

May 26. — There was an eclipse of the sun to-day 
and we were very much excited looking at it. Gen- 
eral Granger came over and gave us some pieces of 
smoked glass. Miss Clark wanted us to write com- 
positions about it so Anna wrote, " About eleven 
o'clock we went out to see if it had come yet, but 
it hadn't come yet, so we waited awhile and then 



28 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

looked again and it had come, and there was a piece 
of it cut out of it." Miss Clark said it was a very 
good description and she knew Anna wrote it all 
herself. 

I handed in a composition, too, about the eclipse, 
but I don't think Miss Clark liked it as well as she 
did Anna's, because it had something in it about 
'' the beggarly elements of the world." She asked 
me where I got it and I told her that it was in a 
nice story book that Grandmother gave me to read 
entitled " Elizabeth Thornton or the Flower and 
Fruit of Female Piety, and other sketches," by Sam- 
uel Irenaeus Prime. This was one of the other 
sketches : It commenced by telling how the moon 
came between the sun and the earth, and then went 
on about the beggarly elements. Miss Clark 
asked me if I knew what they meant and I told her 
no, but I thought they sounded good. She just 
smiled and never scolded me at all. I suppose next 
time I must make it all up myself. 

There is a Mr. Packer in town, who teaches all 
the children to sing. He had a concert in Bemis 
Flail last night and he put Anna on the top row of 
the pyramid of beauty and about one hundred chil- 
dren in rows below. She ought to have worn a 
white dress as the others did but Grandmother said 
her new pink barege would do. I curled her hair 
all around in about thirty curls and she looked very 
nice. She waved the flag in the shape of the letter 
S and sang '' The Star Spangled Banner," and all 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 29 

the others joined in the chorus. It was perfectly 
grand. 

Monday. — When we were on our way to school 
this morning we saw General Granger coming, and 
Anna had on such a homely sunhonnet she took it 
off and hid it behind her till he had gone by. When 
we told Grandmother she said, '' Pride goeth before 
destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." I 
never heard of any one who knew so many Bible 
verses as Grandmother. Anna thought she would 
be sorry for her and get her a new sunbonnet, but 
she didn't. 

Sunday. — We have Sunday School at nine o'clock 
in the morning now. Grandfather loves to watch 
us when we walk off together down the street, so 
he walks back and forth on the front walk till we 
come out, and gives us our money for the contribu- 
tion. This morning we had on our new white 
dresses that Miss Rosewarne made and new summer 
hats and new patten leather shoes and our mitts. 
When he had looked us all over he said, with a 
smile, '' The Bible says, let your garments be always 
white." After we had gone on a little ways, Anna 
said : " If Grandmother had thought of that verse 
I wouldn't have had to wear my pink barege dress 
to the concert." I told her she need not feel bad 
about that now, for she sang as well as any of them 
and looked just as good. She always believes every- 



30 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

thing I say, although she does not always do what 
I tell her to. Mr. Noah T. Clarke told us in Sun- 
day School last Sunday that if we wanted to take 
shares in the missionary ship, Morning Star, we 
could buy them at 10 cents apiece, and Grandmother 
gave us $1 to-day so we could have ten shares. We 
got the certificate with a picture of the ship on it, 
and we are going to keep it always. Anna says if 
we pay the money, we don't have to go. 

Sunday. — I almost forgot that it was Sunday 
this morning and talked and laughed just as I do 
week days. Grandmother told me to write down 
this verse before I went to church so I would re- 
member it : " Keep thy foot when thou goest to 
the house of God, and be more ready to hear than 
to offer the sacrifice of fools." I will remember it 
now, sure. My feet are all right any way with my 
new patten leather shoes on but I shall have to look 
out for my head. Mr. Thomas Howell read a ser- 
mon to-day as Mr. Daggett is out of town. Grand- 
mother always comes upstairs to get the candle and 
tuck us in before she goes to bed herself, and some 
nights we are sound asleep and do not hear her, but 
last night we only pretended to be asleep. She 
kneeled down by the bed and prayed aloud for us, 
that we might be good children and that she might 
have strength given to her from on high to guide us 
in the straight and narrow path which leads to life 
eternal. Those were her very words. After she 



i854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 31 

had gone downstairs we sat up in bed and talked 
about it and promised each other to be good, and 
crossed our hearts and '' hoped to die " if we broke 
our promise. Then Anna was afraid we would die, 
but I told her I didn't believe we would be as 
good as that, so we kissed each other and went to 
sleep. 

Monday. — '' Old Alice " was at our house to-day 
and Grandmother gave her some flowers. She hid 
them in her apron for she said if she should meet 
any little children and they should ask for them she 
would have to let them go. Mrs. Gooding was at 
our house to-day and made a carpet. We went 
over to Aunt Mary Carr's this evening to see the 
gas and the new chandeliers. They are brontz. 

Tuesday. — My three chapters that I read this 
morning were about Josiah's zeal and reformation; 
2nd, Jerusalem taken by Nebuchadnezzar; 3rd, Je- 
rusalem besieged and taken. The reason that we 
always read the Bible the first thing in the morn- 
ing is because it says in the Bible, " Seek first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these 
things shall be added unto you." Grandmother 
says she hopes we will treasure up all these things 
in our hearts and practice them in our lives. I hope 
so, too. This morning Anna got very mad at one 
of the girls and Grandmother told her she ought to 



32 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

return good for evil and heap coals of fire on her 
head. Anna said she wished she could and burn 
her all up, but I don't think she meant it. 

Wednesday. — I got up this morning at twenty 
minutes after five. I always brush my teeth every 
morning, but I forget to put it down here. I read 
my three chapters in Job and played in the garden 
and had time to read Grandmother a piece in the 
paper about some poor children in New York. 
Anna and I went over to Aunt Ann's before school 
and she gave us each two sticks of candy apiece. 
Part of it came from New York and part from 
Williamstown, Mass., where Henry goes to college. 
Ann Eliza is going down street with us this after- 
noon to buy us some new summer bonnets. They 
are to be trimmed with blue and white and are to 
come to five dollars. We are going to Mr. Stan- 
nard's store also, to buy us some stockings. I ought 
to buy me a new thimble and scissors for I carried 
my sewing to school to-day and they were inside of 
it very carelessly and dropped out and got lost. 
I ought to buy them with my own money, but I 
haven't got any, for I gave all I had (two shillings) 
to Anna to buy Louisa Field a cornelian ring. 
Perhaps Father will send me some money soon, out 
I hate to ask him for fear he will rob himself. I 
don't like to tell Grandfather how very careless I 
was, though I know he would say, " Accidents will 
happen." 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 33 

Thursday. — I was up early this morning because 
a dressmaker, Miss Willson, is coming to make me a 
new calico dress. It is white with pink spots in it 
and Grandfather bought it in New York. It is 
very nice indeed and I think Grandfather was very 
kind to get it for me. I had to stay at home from 
school to be fitted. I helped sew and run my dress 
skirt around the bottom and whipped it on the top. 
I went to school in the afternoon, but did not have 
my lessons very well. Miss Clark excused me be- 
cause I was not there in the morning. Some girls 
got up on our fence to-day and walked clear across 
it, the whole length. It is iron and very high and 
has a stone foundation. Grandmother asked them 
to get down, but I think they thought it was more 
fun to walk up there than it was on the ground. 
The name of the little girl that got up first was 
Mary Lapham. She is Lottie Lapham's cousin. 
I made the pocket for my dress after I got home 
from school and then Grandfather said he would 
take us out to ride, so he took us way up to Thad- 
deus Chapin's on the hill. Julia Phelps was there, 
playing with Laura Chapin, for she is her cousin. 
Henry and Ann Eliza Field came over to call this 
evening. Henry has come home from Williams 
College on his vacation and he is a very pleasant 
young man, indeed. I am reading a continued story 
in Harper's Magadnc. It is called Little Dorritt, by 
Charles Dickens, and is very interesting. 



34 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

Friday, May. — Miss Clark told us we could have 
a picnic down to Sucker Brook this afternoon and 
she told us to bring our rubbers and lunches by two 
o'clock; but Grandmother was not willing to let us 
go; not that she wished to deprive us of any pleasure 
for she said instead we could wear our new black 
silk basks and go with her to Preparatory lecture, 
so we did, but when we got there we found that 
Mr. Daggett was out of town so there was no meet- 
ing. Then she told us we could keep dressed up and 
go over to Aunt Mary Carr's and take her some 
apples, and afterwards Grandfather took us to ride 
to see old Mrs. Sanborn and old Mr. and Mrs. At- 
water. He is ninety years old and blind and deaf, 
so we had quite a good time after all. 

Rev. Mr. Dickey, of Rochester, agent for the 
Seaman's Friend Society, preached this morning 
about the poor little canal boy. His text was from 
the 107th Psalm, 23rd verse, " They that go down 
into the sea in ships." He has the queerest voice 
and stops off between his words. When we got 
home Anna said she would show us how he preached 
and she described what he said about a sailor in 
time of war. She said, " A ball came — and struck 
him there — another ball came — and struck him 
there — he raised his faithful sword — and went on — 
to victory — or death." I expected Grandfather 
would reprove her, but he just smiled a queer sort 
of smile and Grandmother put her handkerchief up 
to her face, as she always does when she is amused 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 35 

about anything. I never heard her laugh out loud, 
but I suppose she likes funny things as well as any- 
body. She did just the same, this morning, when 
Grandfather asked Anna where the sun rose, and 
she said " over by Gen. Granger's house and sets 
behind the Methodist church." She said she saw 
it herself and should never forget it when any one 
asked her which was east or west. I think she 
makes up more things than any one I know of. 

Sunday. — Rev. M. L. R. P. Thompson preached 
to-day. He used to be the minister of our church 
before Mr. Daggett came. Some people call him 
Rev. " Alphabet " Thompson, because he has so 
many letters in his name. He preached a very good 
sermon from the text, '' Dearly beloved, as much as 
lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." I like to 
hear him preach, but not as well as I do Mr. Dag- 
gett. I suppose I am more used to him. 

Thursday. — Edward Everett, of Boston, lectured 
in our church this evening. They had a platform 
built even with the tops of the pews, so he did not 
have to go up into the pulpit. Crowds and crowds 
came to hear him from all over everywhere. 
Grandmother let me go. They say he is the most 
eloquent speaker in the U. S., but I have heard 
Mr. Daggett when I thought he was just as 
good. 



36 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

Sunday. — We went to church to-day and heard 
Rev. Mr. Stowe preach. His text was, '' The poor 
ye have with you always and whensoever ye will ye 
may do them good." I never knew any one who 
liked to go to church as much as Grandmother does. 
She says she *' would rather be a doorkeeper in the 
house of our God, than to dwell in the tents of wick- 
edness." They don't have women doorkeepers, and 
I know she would not dwell a minute in a tent. Mr. 
Coburn is the doorkeeper in our church and he rings 
the bell every day at nine in the morning and at 
twelve and at nine in the evening, so Grandfather 
knows when it is time to cover up the fire in the 
fireplace and go to bed. I think if the President 
should come to call he would have to go home at 
nine o'clock. Grandfather's motto is : 

" Early to bed and early to rise 
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." 

Tuesday. — Mrs. Greig and Miss Chapin called to 
see us to-day. Grandmother says that we can re- 
turn the calls as she does not visit any more. We 
would like to, for we always enjoy dressing up and 
making calls. Anna and I received two black veils 
in a letter to-day from Aunt Caroline Dey. Just 
exactly what we had wanted for a long while. 
Uncle Edward sent us five dollars and Grandmother 
said we could buy just what we wanted, so we went 
down street to look at black silk mantillas. We 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 37 

went to Moore's store and to Richardson's and 
to Collier's, but they asked ten, fifteen or twenty dol- 
lars for them, so i\nna said she resolved from now, 
henceforth and forever not to spend her money for 
black silk mantillas. 

Sunday. — Rev. Mr. Tousley preached to-day to 
the children and told us how many steps it took to 
be bad. I think he said lying was first, then dis- 
obedience to parents, breaking the Sabbath, swear- 
ing, stealing, drunkenness. I don't remember just 
the order they came. It was very interesting, for 
he told lots of stories and we sang a great many 
times. I should think Eddy Tousley would be an 
awful good boy with his father in the house with 
him all the while, but probably he has to be away 
part of the time preaching to other children. 

Sunday. — Uncle David Dudley Field and his 
daughter, Mrs. Brewer, of Stockbridge, Mass., are 
visiting us. Mrs. Brewer has a son, David Josiah, 
who is in Yale College. After he graduates he is 
going to be a lawyer and study in his Uncle David 
Dudley Field's office in New York. He was born 
in Smyrna, Asia Minor, where his father and 
mother were missionaries to the Greeks, in 1837. 
Our Uncle David preached for Mr. Daggett this 
afternoon. He is a very old man and left his ser- 
mon at home and I had to go back after it. His 
brother, Timothy, was the first minister in our 



38 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

church, about fifty years ago. Grandmother says 
she came all the way from Connecticut with him 
on horseback on a pillion behind him. Rather a 
long ride, I should say. I heard her and Uncle 
David talking about their childhood and how they 
lived in Guilford, Conn., in a house that was built 
upon a rock. That was some time in the last cen- 
tury like the house that it tells about in the Bible 
that was built on a rock. 

Sunday, August 10, 1854. — Rev. Mr. Daggett's 
text this morning was, '' Remember the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy." Grandmother said she 
thought the sermon did not do us much good for 
she had to tell us several times this afternoon to 
stop laughing. Grandmother said we ought to be 
good Sundays if we want to go to heaven, for there 
it is one eternal Sabbath. Anna said she didn't 
want to be an angel just yet and I don't think there 
is the least danger of it, as far as I can judge. 
Grandmother said there was another verse, '' If we 
do not have any pleasure on the Sabbath, or think 
any thoughts, we shall ride on the high places of 
the earth," and Anna said she liked that better, for 
she would rather ride than do anything else, so we 
both promised to be good. Grandfather told us 
they used to be more strict about Sunday than they 
are now. Then he told us a story, how he had to 
go to Geneva one Saturday morning in the stage 
and expected to come back in the evening, but there 




First Congregational Church 



1854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 39 

was an accident, so the stage did not come till Sun- 
day morning. Church had begun and he told the 
stage driver to leave him right there, so he went 
in late and the stage drove on. The next day he 
heard that he was to come before the minister. Rev. 
Mr. Johns, and the deacons and explain why he 
had broken the fourth commandment. When he 
got into the meeting Mr. Johns asked him what he 
had to say, and he explained about the accident and 
asked them to read a verse from the 8th chapter 
of John, before they made up their minds what 
to do to him. The verse was, '' Let him that is 
without sin among you cast the first stone." Grand- 
father said they all smiled, and the minister said 
the meeting was out. Grandfather says that shows 
it is better to know plenty of Bible verses, for some 
time they may do you a great deal of good. We 
then recited the catechism and went to bed. 

August 21. — Anna says that Alice Jewett feels 
very proud because she has a little baby brother. 
They have named him John Harvey Jewett after 
his father, and Alice says when he is bigger she will 
let Anna help her take him out to ride in his baby- 
carriage. I suppose they will throw away their 
dolls now. 

Tuesday, September i. — I am sewing a sheet over 
and over for Grandmother and she puts a pin in to 
show me my stint, before I can go out to play. 



40 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

I am always glad when I get to it. I am making 
a sampler, too, and have all the capital letters worked 
and now will make the small ones. It is done in 
cross stitch on canvas with different color silks. I 
am going to work my name, too. I am also knitting 
a tippet on some wooden needles that Henry Carr 
made for me. Grandmother has raveled it out 
several times because I dropped stitches. It is 
rather tedious, but she says, "If at first you don't 
succeed, try, try again." Some military soldiers 
w^ent by the house to-day and played some beautiful 
music. Grandfather has a teter and swing for us 
in the back yard and we enjoy them usually, but 
to-night Anna slid off the teter board when she was 
on the ground and I was in the air and I came down 
sooner than I expected. There was a hand organ 
and monkey going by and she was in a hurry to get 
to the street to see it. She got there a good while 
before I did. The other day we were swinging 
and Grandmother called us in to dinner, but Anna 
said we could not go until we '' let the old cat die." 
Grandmother said it was more important that we 
should come w^hen we are called. 

October. — Grandmother's name is Abigail, but she 
was always called '' Nabby " at home. Some of 
the girls call me " Carrie," but Grandmother prefers 
" Caroline." She told us to-day, how when she 
was a little girl, down in Connecticut in 1794, vShe 
was on her way to school one morning and she saw 



i854] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 41 

an Indian coming and was so afraid, bnt did not 
dare run for fear he would chase her. So she 
thought of the word sago, which means " good 
morning," and when she got up close to him she 
dropped a curtesy and said '' Sago," and he just 
went right along and never touched her at all. She 
says she hopes we will always be polite to every 
one, even to strangers. 

November. — Abbie Clark's father has been elected 
Governor and she is going to Albany to live, for a 
while. We all congratulated her when she came to 
school this morning, but I am sorry she is going 
away. We will write to each other every week. 
She wrote a prophecy and told the girls what they 
were going to be and said I should be mistress of 
the White House. I think it will happen, about the 
same time that Anna goes to be a missionary. 

December. — There was a moonlight sleighride of 
boys and girls last night, but Grandfather did not 
want us to go, but to-night he said he was going to 
take us to one himself. So after supper he told 
Mr. Piser to harness the horse to the cutter and 
bring it around to the front gate. Mr. Piser takes 
care of our horse and the Methodist Church. He 
lives in the basement. Grandfather sometimes calls 
him Shakespeare to us, but I don't know why. He 
doesn't look as though he wrote poetry. Grand- 
father said he was going to take us out to Mr. 



42 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1854 

Waterman Powers' in Farmington and he did. 
They were quite surprised to see ns. but very glad 
and gave us apples and doughnuts and other good 
things. \W^ saw Anne and Imogene and Morey 
and one little girl named Zimmie. They wanted us 
to stay all night, but Grandmother was expecting 
us. \\> got home safe about ten o'clock and had 
a very nice time. We never sat up so late before. 



i8s5 

Wednesday, January 9. — I came downstairs this 
morning at ten minutes after seven, almost frozen. 
I never spent such a cold night before in all my life. 
It is almost impossible to get warm even in the 
dining-room. The thermometer is 10° below zero. 
The schoolroom was so cold that I had to keep my 
cloak on. I spoke a piece this afternoon. It was 
" The Old Arm Chair," by Eliza Cook. It begins, 
'' I love it, I love it, and who shall dare to chide 
me for loving that old arm chair?" I love it be- 
cause it makes me think of Grandmother. After 
school to-night Anna and I went downtown to buy 
a writing book, but we were so cold we thought we 
would never get back. Anna said she knew her 
toes were frozen. We got as far as Mr. Taylor's 
gate and she said she could not get any farther; but 
I pulled her along, for I could not bear to have her 
perish in sight of home. We went to bed about 
eight o'clock and slept very nicely indeed, for 
Grandmother put a good many blankets on and we 
were warm. 

January 23. — This evening after reading one of 
Dickens' stories I knit awhile on my mittens. I 

43 



44 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1855 

have not had nice ones in a good while. Grand- 
mother cut out the ones that I am wearing of white 
flannel, bound round the wrist with blue merino. 
They are not beautiful to be sure, but warm and 
wall answer all purposes until I get some that are 
better. When I came home from school to-day 
Mrs. Taylor was here. She noticed how tall I was 
growing and said she hoped that I was as good as 
I was tall. A very good wish, I am sure. 

Sunday, January 29. — Mr. Daggett preached this 
morning from the text, Deut. 8:2: '' And thou 
shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God 
led thee." It is ten years to-day since Mr. Daggett 
came to our church, and he told how many deaths 
there had been, and how many baptismiS, and how 
many members had been added to the church. It 
w^as a very interesting sermon, and everybody hoped 
Mr. Daggett would stay here ten years more, or 
twenty, or thirty, or ahvays. He is the only minis- 
ter that I ever had, and I don't ever want any other. 
We never could have any one with such a voice as 
Mr. Daggett's, or such beautiful eyes. Then he has 
such good sermons, and always selects the hymns 
we like best, and reads them in such a Vs'ay. This 
morning they sang: "Thus far the Lord has led 
me on, thus far His power prolongs my days." 
After he has been away on a vacation he always 
has for the first hymn, and we always turn to it 
before he gives it out : 



i855j VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 45 

" Upward I lift mine eyes, 
From God is all my aid ; 
The God that built the skies, 
And earth and nature made. 

*' God is the tower 
To which I fly 
His grace is nigh 
In every hour." 

He always prays for the oil of joy for mourning 
and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. 



January, 1855. — Johnny Lyon is dead. Georgia 
Wilkinson cried awfully in school because she said 
she was engaged to him. 

April. — Grandmother received a letter from Con- 
necticut to-day telling of the death of her only sister. 
She was knitting before she got it and she laid it 
down a few moments and looked quite sad and said, 
*' So sister Anna is dead." Then after a little she 
went on with her work. Anna watched her and 
when we were alone she said to me, " Caroline, some 
clay when you are about ninety you may be eating 
an apple or reading or doing something and you will 
get a letter telling of my decease and after you have 
read it you will go on as usual and just say, ' So sis- 
ter Anna is dead.' " I told her that I knew if I lived 
to be a hundred and heard that she was dead I 
should cry my eyes out, if I had any. 



46 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1855 

May. — Father has sent us a box of fruit from 
New Orleans. Prunes, figs, dates and oranges, and 
one or two pomegranates. We never saw any of 
the latter before. They are full of cells with jelly 
in, very nice. He also sent some seeds of sensitive 
plant, which we have sown in our garden. 

This evening I wrote a letter to John and a little 
*' poetry " to Father, but it did not amount to much. 
I am going to write some a great deal better some 
day. Grandfather had some letters to write this 
morning, and got up before three o'clock to write 
them ! He slept about three-quarters of an hour to- 
night in his chair. 

Sunday. — There was a stranger preached for Dr. 
Daggett this morning and his text was, '' Man look- 
eth upon the outward appearance but the Lord look- 
eth on the heart." When we got home Anna said 
the minister looked as though he had been sick from 
birth and his forehead stretched from his nose to 
the back of his neck, he was so bald. Grandmother 
told her she ought to have been more interested in 
his words than in his looks, and that she must have 
very good eyes if she could see all that from our 
pew, which is the furthest from the pulpit of any 
in church, except Mr. Gibson's, which is just the 
same. Anna said she couldn't help seeing it unless 
she shut her eyes, and then every one would think 
she had gone to sleep. We can see the Academy 
boys from our pew, too. 



i855] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 47 

Mr. Lathrop, of the seminary, is superintendent 
of the Sunday School now and he had a present to- 
day from Miss Betsey Chapin, and several visitors 
came in to see it presented : Dr. Daggett, Mr. and 
Mrs. Alex. Howell, Mr. Tousley, Mr. Stowe, Mr. 
and Mrs. Gideon Granger and several others. The 
present was a certificate of life membership to some- 
thing ; I did not hear what. It was just a large piece 
of parchment, but they said it cost $25. Miss Lizzie 
Bull is my Sunday School teacher now. She asked 
us last Sunday to look up a place in the Bible where 
the trees held a consultation together, to see which 
one should reign over them. I did not remember 
any such thing, but I looked it up in the concordance 
and found it in Judges 9:8. I found the meaning 
of it in Scott's Commentary and wrote it down and 
she was very much pleased, and told us next Sunday 
to find out all about Absalom. 

July. — Our sensitive plant is growing nicely and 
it is quite a curiosity. It has fern-like leaves and 
when wx touch them, they close, but soon come out 
again. Anna and I keep them performing. 

September i. — Anna and I go to the seminary 
now. Mr. Richards and Mr. Tyler are the princi- 
pals. Anna fell down and sprained her ankle to- 
day at the seminary, and had to be carried into Mrs. 
Richards' library. She was sliding down the ban- 
nisters with little Annie Richards. I wonder what 
she will do next. She has good luck in the gym- 



48 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1855 

nasium and can beat Emma Wheeler and Jennie 
Ruckle swinging on the pole and climbing the rope 
ladder, although they and Sarah Antes are about as 
spry as squirrels and they are all good at ten pins. 
Susie Daggett and Lucilla Field have gone to Farm- 
ington, Conn., to school. 

Monday. — I received a letter from my brother 
John in New Orleans, and his ambrotype. He has 
grown amazingly. He also sent me a N. O. paper 
and it gave an account of the public exercises in the 
school, and said John spoke a piece called '' The 
Baron's Last Banquet," and had great applause and 
it said he was " a chip off the old block." He is a 
very nice boy, I know that. James is sixteen years 
old now and is in Princeton College. He is studying 
German and says he thinks he will go to Germany 
some day and finish his education, but I guess in 
that respect he will be very much disappointed. 
Germany is a great ways off and none of our rela- 
tions that I ever heard of have ever been there and 
it is not at all likely that any of them ever will. 
Grandfather says, though, it is better to aim too high 
than not high enough. James is a great boy to 
study. They had their pictures taken together once 
and John was holding some flow^ers and James a 
book and I guess he has held on to it ever since. 

Sunday. — Polly Peck looked so funny on the 
front seat of the gallery. She had on one of Mrs. 



i855] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 49 

Greig's bonnets and her lace collar and cape and 
mitts. She used to be a milliner so she knows how 
to get herself up in style. The ministers have ap- 
pointed a day of fasting and prayer and Anna asked 
Grandmother if it meant to eat as fast as you can. 
Grandmother was very much surprised. 

November 25. — I helped Grandmother get ready 
for Thanksgiving Day by stoning some raisins and 
pounding some cloves and cinnamon in the mortar 
pestle pounder. It is quite a job. I have been 
writing with a quill pen but I don't like it because it 
squeaks so. Grandfather made us some to-day and 
also bought us some wafers to seal our letters with, 
and some sealing wax and a stamp with " R " on it. 
He always uses the seal on his watch fob with " B." 
He got some sand, too. Our inkstand is double and 
has one bottle for ink and the other for sand to dry 
the writing. 

December 20, 1855. — Susan B. Anthony is in 
town and spoke in Bemis Hall this afternoon. She 
made a special request that all the seminary girls 
should come to hear her as well as all the women and 
girls in town. She had a large audience and she 
talked very plainly about our rights and how we 
ought to stand up for them, and said the world 
would never go right until the w^omen had just as 
much right to vote and rule as the men. She asked 
us all to come up and sign our names who would 



50 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1855 

promise to do all in our power to bring about that 
glad day when equal rights should be the law of 
the land. A whole lot of us went up and signed the 
paper. When I told Grandmother about it she said 
she guessed Susan B. Anthony had forgotten that 
St. I'aul said the women should keep silence. I told 
her, no, she didn't for she spoke particularly about 
St. Paul and said if he had lived in these times, 
instead of 1800 years ago, he would have been as 
anxious to have the women at the head of the gov- 
ernment as she was. I could not make Grand- 
mother agree with her at all and she said we might 
better all of us stayed at home. We went to prayer 
meeting this evening and a woman got up and 
talked. Her name was Mrs. Sands. We hurried 
home and told Grandmother and she said she prob- 
ably meant all right and she hoped we did not laugh. 

Monday. — I told Grandfather if he would bring 
me some sheets of foolscap paper I would begin to 
write a book. So he put a pin on his sleeve to re- 
mind him of it and to-night he brought me a whole 
lot of it. I shall begin it to-morrow. This evening 
I helped Anna do her Arithmetic examples, and read 
her Sunday School book. The name of it is 
" Watch and Pray." My book is the second volume 
of '' Stories on the Shorter Catechism." 

Tuesday. — I decided to copy a lot of choice stories 
and have them printed and say they were " compiled 



i855] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 51 

by Caroline Cowles Richards," it is so much easier 
than making them up. I spent three hours to-day 
copying- one and am so tired I think I shall give it up. 
When I told Grandmother she looked disappointed 
and said my ambition was like " the morning cloud 
and the early dew," for it soon vanished away. Anna 
said it might spring up again and bear fruit a hun- 
dredfold. Grandfather wants us to amount to 
something and he buys us good books whenever he 
has a chance. He bought me Miss Caroline Chese- 
bro's book, ^' The Children of Light," and Alice and 
Phoebe Gary's Poems. He is always reading Chan- 
ning's memoirs and sermons and Grandmother 
keeps " Lady Huntington and Her Friends," next to 
'' Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises " and her 
Testament. Anna told Grandmother that she saw 
Mrs. George Willson looking very steadily at us in 
prayer meeting the other night and she thought 
she might be planning to " write us up." Grand- 
mother said she did not think Mrs. Willson was so 
short of material as that would imply, and she 
feared she had some other reason for looking at us. 
I think dear Grandmother has a little grain of sar- 
casm in her nature, but she only uses it on extra 
occasions. Anna said, " Oh, no ; she wrote the lives 
of the three Mrs. Judsons and I thought she might 
like for a change to write the biographies of the 
* two Miss Richards.' " Anna has what might be 
called a vivid imagination. 



1856 

January 23. — This is the third morning that I 
have come down stairs at exactly twenty minutes 
to seven. I went to school all day. Mary Paul and 
Fannie Palmer read '' The Snozv Bird " to-day. 
There were some funny things in it. One was: 
*' Why is a lady's hair like the latest news ? Be- 
cause in the morning we always find it in the pa- 
pers." Another was: '' One rod makes an acher, 
as the boy said when the schoolmaster flogged him." 

This is Allie Field's birthday. He got a pair of 
slippers from Mary with the soles all on ; a pair of 
mittens from Miss Eliza Chapin, and Miss Rebecca 
Gorham is going to give him a pair of stockings 
when she gets them done. 

January 30. — I came home from school at eleven 
o'clock this morning and learned a piece to speak 
this afternoon, but when I got up to school I forgot 
it, so I thought of another one. Mr. Richards said 
that he must give me the praise of being the best 
speaker that spoke in the afternoon. Ahem ! 

February 6. — We were awakened very early this 
morning by the cry of fire and the ringing of bells 
and could see the sky red with flames and knew it 

52 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 53 

was the stores and we thought they were all burning 
up. Pretty soon we heard our big brass door 
knocker being pounded fast and Grandfather said, 
" Who's there? " " Melville Arnold for the bank 
keys," we heard. Grandfather handed them out 
and dressed as fast as he could and went down, 
while Anna and I just lay there and watched the 
flames and shook. He was gone two or three hours 
and when he came back he said that Mr. Palmer's 
hat store, Mr. Underhill's book store, Mr. Shafer's 
tailor shop, Mrs. Smith's millinery, Pratt & Smith's 
drug store, Mr. Mitchell's dry goods store, two 
printing offices and a saloon were burned. It was 
a very handsome block. The bank escaped fire, but 
the wall of the next building fell on it and crushed 
it. After school to-night Grandmother let us go 
down to see how the fire looked. It looked very 
sad indeed. Judge Taylor offered Grandfather one 
of the wings of his house for the bank for the pres- 
ent but he has secured a place in Mr. Buhre's store 
in the Franklin Block. 

Thursday, February 7. — Dr. and Aunt Mary Carr 
and Uncle Field and Aunt Ann were over at our 
house to dinner to-day and we had a fine fish dinner, 
not one of Gabriel's (the man who blows such a 
blast through the street, they call him Gabriel), but 
one that Mr. Francis Granger sent to us. It was 
elegant. Such a large one it covered a big platter. 
This eveninsf General Granger came in and brouiflit 



54 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

a gentleman with him whose name was Mr. Skinner. 
They asked Grandfather, as one of the trustees of 
the church, if he had any objection to a deaf and 
dumb exhibition there to-morrow night. He had 
no objection, so they will have it and we will go. 

Friday. — We went and liked it very much. The 
man with them could talk and he interpreted it. 
There were two deaf and dumb women and three 
children. They performed very prettily, but the 
smartest boy did the most. He acted out David kill- 
ing Goliath and the story of the boy stealing apples 
and how the old man tried to get him down by 
throwing grass at him, but finding that would not 
do, he threw stones which brought the boy down 
pretty quick. Then he acted a boy going fishing 
and a man being shaved in a barber shop and several 
other things. I laughed out loud in school to-day 
and made some pictures on my slate and showed 
them to Clara Willson and made her laugh, and 
then we both had to stay after school. Anna was at 
Aunt Ann's to supper to-night to meet a little girl 
named Helen Bristol, of Rochester. Ritie Tyler 
was there, too, and they had a lovely time. 

February 8. — I have not written in my journal 
for several days, because I never like to write things 
down if they don't go right. Anna and I were 
invited to go on a sleigh-ride, Tuesday night, and 
Grandfather said he did not want us to go. We 





Judge Henry W. Taylor Miss Zilpha Clark 




Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D. 





Trankie Richardson' 



Horace Finley 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 55 

asked him if we could spend the evening with 
Frankie Richardson and he said yes, so we went 
down there and when the load stopped for her, we 
went too, but w'e did not enjoy ourselves at all and 
did not join in the singing. I had no idea that 
sleigh-rides could make any one feel so bad. It was 
not very cold, but I just shivered all the time. 
When the nine o'clock bell rang we were up by the 
'' Northern Retreat," and I was so glad when we got 
near home so we could get out. Grandfather and 
Grandmother asked us if we had a nice time, but 
WQ got to bed as quick as w^e could. The next day 
Grandfather went into Mr. Richardson's store and 
told him he was glad he did not let Frankie go on 
the sleigh-ride, and Mr. Richardson said he did let 
her go and we went too. We knew how it was 
when we got home from school, because they acted 
so sober, and, after a while, Grandmother talked 
with us about it. We told her we were sorry and 
we did not have a bit good time and would never 
do it again. When she prayed with us the next 
morning, as she always does before we go to school, 
she said, " Prepare us. Lord, for what thou art pre- 
paring for us," and it seemed as though she was 
discouraged, but she said she forgave us. I know 
one thing, we will never run away to any more 
sleigh-rides. 

Fehruary 20. — Mr. Worden, Mrs. Henry Chese- 
bro's father, was buried to-day, and Aunt Ann let 



56 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

Allie stay with us while she went to the funeral. I 
am going to Fannie GaylorcFs party to-morrow 
night. 

I went to school this afternoon and kept the rules, 
so to-night I had the satisfaction of saying '' per- 
fect " when called upon, and if I did not like to 
keep the rules, it is some pleasure to say that. 

February 2 1 . — We had a very nice time at Fannie 
Gaylord's party and a splendid supper. Lucilla 
Field laughed herself almost to pieces when she 
found on going home that she had worn her leggins 
all the evening. We had a pleasant walk home but 
did not stay till it was out. Some one asked me if 
I danced every set and I told them no, I set every 
dance. I told Grandmother and she was very 
much pleased. Some one told us that Grandfather 
and Grandmother first met at a ball in the early 
settlement of Canandaigua. I asked her if it was 
so and she said she never had danced since she be- 
came a professing Christian and that was more than 
fifty years ago. 

Grandfather heard to-day of the death of his sis- 
ter, Lydia, who was Mrs. Lyman Beecher. She 
was Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher's third wife. Grand- 
mother says that they visited her once and she was 
quite nervous thinking about having such a great 
man as Dr. Lyman Beecher for her guest, as he was 
considered one of the greatest men of his day, but 
she said she soon got over this feeling, for he was 



i856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 57 

so genial and pleasant and she noticed particularly 
how he ran up and down stairs like a boy. I think 
that is very apt to be the way for '' men are only 
boys grown tall." 

There was a Know Nothing convention in town 
to-day. They don't want any one but Americans to 
hold office, but I guess they will find that foreigners 
will get in. Our hired man is an Irishman and I 
think he would just as soon be " Prisidint " as not. 

February 22. — This is such a beautiful day, the 
girls wanted a holiday, but Mr. Richards would not 
grant it. We told him it w^as Washington's birth- 
day and we felt very patriotic, but he was inexo- 
rable. We had a musical review and literary exer- 
cises instead in the afternoon and I put on my blue 
merino dress and my other shoes. Anna dressed 
up, too, and I curled her hair. The Primary schol- 
ars sit upstairs this term and do not have to pay 
any more. Anna and Emma Wheeler like it very 
much, but they do not sit together. We are seated 
alphabetically, and I sit with Mary Reznor and Anna 
with Mittie Smith. They thought she would behave 
better, I suppose, if they put her with one of the 
older girls, but I do not know as it will have the 
" desired effect," as Grandmother says. Miss Mary 
Howell and Miss Carrie Hart and Miss Lizzie and 
Miss Mollie Bull were visitors this afternoon. Ger- 
trude Monier played and sang. Mrs. Anderson is 
the singing teacher. Marion Maddox and Pussie 



58 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

Harris and Mary Daniels played on the piano. Mr. 
Hardick is the teacher, and he played too. You 
would think he was trying to pound the piano all 
to pieces but he is a good player. We have two 
papers kept up at school. The Snozu Bird and The 
Waif — one for the younger and the other for the 
older girls. Miss Jones, the composition teacher, 
corrects them both. Kate Buell and Anna Maria 
Chapin read The Waif to-day and Gusta Buell and 
I read The Snozv Bird. She has beautiful curls and 
has two nice brothers also, Albert and Arthur, and 
the girls all like them. They have not lived in town 
very long. 

February 25. — I guess I won't fill up my journal 
any more by saying I arose this morning at the usual 
time, for 1 don't think it is a matter of life or death 
whether I get up at the usual time or a few minutes 
later and when I am older and read over the account 
of the manner in which I occupied my time in my 
younger days I don't think it will add particularly 
to the interest to know whether I used to get up 
at 7 or at a quarter before. I think Miss Sprague, 
our schoolroom teacher, would have been glad if 
none of us had got up at all this morning for we 
acted so in school. She does not want any noise 
during the three minute recess, but there has been a 
good deal all day. In singing class they disturbed 
Mr. Kimball by blowing through combs. We took 
off our round combs and put paper over them and 



1 856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 59 

then blew— Mary Wheeler and Lottie Lapham and 
Anna sat nearest me and we all tried to do it, but 
Lottie was the only one who could make it go. He 
thought we all did, so he made us come up and sit 
by him. I did not want to a bit. He told Miss 
Sprague of us and she told the whole school if there 
was as much noise another day she would keep 
every one of us an hour after half-past 4. As soon 
as she said this they all began to groan. She said 
'' Silence." I only made the least speck of a noise 
that no one heard. 

February 26. — To-night, after singing class, Mr. 
Richards asked all who blew through combs to rise. 
I did not, because I could not make it go, but when 
he said all who groaned could rise, I did, and some 
others, but not half who did it. He kept us very 
late and we all had to sign an apology to Miss 
Sprague. 

Grandfather made me a present of a beautiful 
blue stone to-day called Malachite. Anna said she 
always thought Malachite was one of the prophets. 

March 3, 1856.— Elizabeth Spencer sits with me 
in school now. She is full of fun but always man- 
ages to look very sober when Miss Chesebro looks 
up to see who is making the noise over our way. 
I never seem to have that knack. Anna had to stay 
after school last night and she wrote in her journal 
that the reason was because '' nature will out " and 



6o VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

because '' she whispered and didn't have her lessons, 
etc., etc., etc." Mr. Ricliards has allowed us to 
bring our sewing to school but now he says we can- 
not any more. I am sorry for I have some em- 
broidery and I could get one pantalette done in a 
week, but now it will take me longer. Grandmother 
has offered me one dollar if I will stitch a linen 
shirt bosom and wrist bands for Grandfather and 
make the sleeves. I have commenced but, Oh my! 
it is an undertaking. I have to pull the threads out 
and then take up two threads and leave three. It is 
very particular work and Anna says the stitches 
must not be visible to the naked eye. I have to fell 
the sleeves with the tiniest seams and stroke all the 
gathers and put a stitch on each gather. Minnie 
Bellows is the best one in school with her needle and 
is a dabster at patching. She cut a piece right out 
of her new calico dress and matched a new piece in 
and none of us could tell where it was. I am sure 
it would not be safe for me to try that. Grand- 
mother let me ask three of the girls to dinner Sat- 
urday, Abbie Clark, Mary Wheeler and Mary Field. 
We had a big roast turkey and everything else to 
match. Good enough for Queen Victoria. That 
reminds me of a conundrum we had in The Snow 
Bird: What does Queen Victoria take her pills in? 
In cider. (Inside her.) 

March 7. — The reports were read at school to-day 
and mine was, Attendance 10, Deportment 8, Schol- 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 61 

arship ^Y^, and Anna's 10, 10 and 7. I think they 
got it turned around, for Anna has not behaved any- 
thing uncommon lately. 

March 10. — My teacher Miss Sprague kept me 
after school to-night for whispering, and after all 
the others were gone she came to my seat and put 
her arm around me and kissed me and said she loved 
me very much and hoped I would not whisper in 
school any more. This made me feel very sorry 
and I told her I would try my best, but it seemed 
as though it whispered itself sometimes. I think 
she is just as nice as she can be and I shall tell the 
other girls so. Her home is in Glens Falls. 

y\nna jumj^ed the rope two hundred times to-day 
williout stopping, and I told her that I read of a girl 
who did that and then fell right down stone dead. 
I don't believe Anna will do it again. If she does 
I shall tell Grandmother. 

April 5. — I walked down town with Grandfather 
this morning and it is such a beautiful day I felt 
glad that I was alive. The air was full of tiny little 
flies, buzzing around and going in circles and semi- 
circles as though they were practising calisthenics or 
dancing a quadrille. I think they were glad they 
were alive, too. I stepped on a big bug crawling 011 
the walk and Grandfather said I ought to have 
brushed it aside instead of killing it. I asked him 
why and he said, '' Shakespeare says, ' The beetle 



62 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

that we tread upon feels a pang as great as when a 
giant dies.' " 

A man came to our door the other day and asked 
if " Deacon " Beals was at home. I asked Grand- 
mother afterwards if Grandfather was a Deacon 
and she said no and never had been, that people gave 
him the name when he was a young man because 
he was so staid and sober in his appearance. Some 
one told me once that I would not know my Grand- 
father if I should meet him outside the Corporation. 
I asked why and he said because he was so genial 
and told such good stories. I told him that was just 
the way he always is at home. I do not know any 
one who appreciates real wit more than he does. 
He is quite strong in his likes and dislikes, however. 
I have heard him say, 

" I do not like you, Dr. Fell, 
The reason why, I cannot tell ; 
But this one thing I know full well, 
I do not like you, Dr. Fell." 

Bessie Seymour wore a beautiful gold chain to 
school this morning and I told Grandmother that I 
wanted one just like it. She said that outward 
adornments were not of as much value as inward 
graces and the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, 
in the sight of the Lord, was of great price. I know 
it is very becoming to Grandmother and she wears 
it all the time but I wish I had a gold chain just 
the same. 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 63 

Aunt Ann received a letter to-day from Lucilla, 
who is at Miss Porter's school at Farniington, Con- 
necticut. She feels as if she were a Christian and 
that she has experienced religion. 

Grandfather noticed how bright and smart Bent- 
ley Murray was, on the street, and what a business 
way he had, so he applied for a place for him as page 
in the Legislature at Albany and got it. He is 
always noticing young people and says, " As the 
twig is bent, the tree is inclined." He says we may 
be teachers yet if we are studious now. Anna says, 
" Excuse me, please." 

Grandmother knows the Bible from Genesis to 
Revelation excepting the " begats " and the hard 
names, but Anna told her a new verse this morning, 
" At Parbar westward, four at the causeway and 
two at Parbar." Grandmother put her spectacles 
up on her forehead and just looked at Anna as 
though she had been talking in Chinese. She finally 
said, " Anna, I do not think that is in the Bible." 
She said, " Yes, it is; I found it in i Chron. 26: 18." 
Grandmother found it and then she said Anna had 
better spend her time looking up more helpful texts. 
Anna then asked her if she knew who was the short- 
est man mentioned in the Bible and Grandmother 
said " Zaccheus." Anna said that she just read in 
the newspaper, that one said " Nehimiah was " and 
another said " Bildad the Shuhite " and another said 
'' Tohi." Grandmother said it was very wicked to 
pervert the Scripture so, and she did not approve of 



64 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

it at all. I don't think Anna will give Grandmother 
any more Bible conundrums. 

April 12. — We went down town this morning and 
bought us some shaker bonnets to wear to school. 
They cost $1 apiece and we got some green silk for 
capes to put on them. We fixed them ourselves 
and wore them to school and some of the girls liked 
them and some did not, but it makes no difference 
to me what they like, for I shall wear mine till it 
is worn out. Grandmother says that if we try to 
please everybody we please nobody. The girls are 
all having mystic books at school now and they are 
very interesting to have. They are blank books and 
W'e ask the girls and boys to write in them and then 
they fold the page tw^ice over and seal it with wafers 
or wax and then write on it what day it is to be 
opened. Some of them say, '' Not to be opened for 
a year," and that is a long time to wait. If we can- 
not wait we can open them and seal them up again. 
I think Anna did look to see what Eugene Stone 
wrote in hers, for it does not look as smooth as it 
did at first. We have autograph albums too and 
Horace Finley gave us lots of small photographs. 
We paste them in the books and then ask the people 
to write their names. We have got Miss Upham's 
picture and Dr. and Mrs. Daggett, General 
Granger's and Hon. Francis Granger's and Mrs. 
Adele Granger Thayer and Friend Burling, Dr. 
Jewett, Dr. Cheney, Deacon y\ndrews and Dr. Carr, 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 65 

and Johnnie Thompson's, Mr. Noah T. Clarke, Mr. 
E. M. Morse, Mrs. George Willson, Theodore Bar- 
nuni, Jim Paton's and Will Schley, Merritt Wilcox, 
Tom Raines, Ed. Williams, Gus Coleman's, W. P. 
Fisk and lots of the girls' pictures besides. Eugene 
Stone and Tom Eddy had their ambrotypes taken 
together, in a handsome case, and gave it to Anna. 
We are going to keep them always. 

April. — The Siamese twins are in town and a lot 
of the girls went to see them in Bemis Hall this 
afternoon. It costs 10 cents. Grandmother let us 
go. Their names are Eng and Chang and they are 
not very handsome. They are two men joined to- 
gether. I hope they like each other but I don't envy 
them any way. If one wanted to go somewhere and 
the other one didn't I don't see how they would man- 
age it. One would have to give up, that's certain. 
Perhaps they are both Christians. 

April 30. — Rev. Henry M. Field, editor of the 
Nczv York Evangelist, and his little French wife are 
here visiting. She is a wonderful woman. She has 
written a book and paints beautiful pictures and was 
teacher of art in Cooper Institute, New York. He 
is Grandmother's nephew and he brought her a pic- 
ture of himself and his five brothers, taken for 
Grandmother, because she is the only aunt they have 
in the world. The rest are all dead. The men in 
the picture are Jonathan and Matthew and David 



66 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

Dudley and Stephen J. and Cyrus W. and Henry M. 
They are all very nice looking and Grandmother 
thinks a great deal of the picture. 

May 15. — Miss Anna Gaylord is one of my teach- 
ers at the seminary and when I told her that I wrote 
a journal every day she wanted me to bring her my 
last book and let her read it. I did so and she said 
she enjoyed it very much and she hoped I would 
keep them for they would be interesting for me to 
read when I am old. I think I shall do so. She has 
a very particular friend, Rev. Mr. Beaumont, who is 
one of the teachers at the Academy. I think they 
are going to be married some day. I guess I will 
show her this page of my journal, too. Grand- 
mother let me make a pie in a saucer to-day and it 
was very good. 

May. — We were invited to Bessie Seymour's 
party last night and Grandmother said we could go. 
The girls all told us at school that they were going 
to wear low neck and short sleeves. We have caps 
on the sleeves of our best dresses and we tried to get 
the sleeves out, so we could go bare arms, but we 
couldn't get them out. We had a very nice time, 
though, at the party. Some of the Academy boys 
were there and they asked us to dance but of course 
we couldn't do that. We promenaded around the 
rooms and went out to supper with them. Eugene 
Stone and Tom Eddy asked to go home with us but 





faO 



w 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 67 

Grandmother sent our two girls for us, Bridget 
Flynn and Hannah White, so they eouUhi't. We 
were quite disappointed, but perhaps she won't send 
for us next time. 



May. — Grandmother is teaehing me how to knit 
some mittens now, but if I ever finish them it will 
be through much tribulation, the way they have to 
be raveled out and commenced over again. I think 
I shall know how to knit when 1 get through, if 1 
never know how to do anything else. I'erhaps L 
shall know how to write, too, for 1 write all of 
Grandmother's letters for her, because it tires her to 
w-rite too much. 1 have sorted my letters to-day 
and tied them in packages and found 1 had between 
500 and 600. 1 have had about two letters a week 
for the past five years and have kept them all. 
Father almost always tells me in his letters to read 
my Bible and say my prayers and obey Grandmother 
and stand up straight and turn out my toes and 
brush my teeth and be good to my little sister. 1 
have been practising all these so long I can say, as 
the young man did in the Bible when Jesus told him 
what to do to be saved, " all these have I kept from 
my youth up." But then, I lack (juite a number of 
things after all. I am not always strictly obedient. 
For instance, I know Grandmother never likes to 
have us read the secular part of the Nciv York Ob- 
server on Sunday, so she puts it in the top drawer 
of the sideboard until Monday, but I couldn't find 



68 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

anything interesting to read the other Sunday so I 
took it out and read it and put it back. The jokes 
and stories in it did not seem as amusing as usual 
so I think I will not do it again. 

Grandfather's favorite paper is the Boston Chris- 
tian Register. He could not have one of them torn 
up any more than a leaf of the Bible. He has bar- 
rels of them stored away in the garret. 

I asked Grandmother to-day to write a verse for 
me to keep always and she wrote a good one : " To 
be happy and live long the three grand essentials are : 
Be busy, love somebody and have high aims." I 
think, from all I have noticed about her, that she 
has had this for her motto all her life and I don't 
think Anna and I can do very much better than to 
try and follow it too. Grandfather tells us some- 
times, when she is not in the room, that the best 
thing we can do is to be just as near like Grand- 
mother as we can possibly be. 

Saturday, May 30. — Louisa Field came over to 
dinner to-day and brought Allie with her. We had 
roast chickens for dinner and lots of other nice 
things. Grandmother taught us how to string lilac 
blossoms for necklaces and also how to make curls 
of dandelion stems. She always has some things in 
the parlor cupboard which she brings out on extra 
occasions, so she got them out to-day. They are 
some Chinamen which Uncle Thomas brought home 
when he sailed around the world. They are 



1 856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 69 

wooden images standing in boxes, packing tea with 
their feet. 

Last week Jennie Howell invited us to go up to 
Black Point Cabin with her and to-day with a lot of 
grown-up people we went and enjoyed it. There 
was a little colored girl there who waits on the table 
and can row the boats too. She is Polly CarroU's 
grand-daughter, Mary Jane. She sang for us, 

" Nellie Bly shuts her eye when she goes to sleep, 
When she opens thena again her eyes begin to i)eei) ; 
Hi Nellie, Ho Nellie, listen love to nic, 
I'll sing for you, I'll play for you, 
A dulcet melody." 

She is just as cute as she can be. She said Mrs. 
Henry Chesebro taught her to read. 

Sunday, June i.— Rev. Dr. Shaw, of Rochester, 
preached for Dr. Daggett to-day and his text was : 
'' Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shah never thirst." He said by this 
water he meant the pleasures of this life, wealth and 
fame and honor, of which the more we have the 
more we want and are never satisfied, but if we 
drink of the water that Christ can give us we will 
have happiness here and forever. It was a very 
good sermon and I love to hear him preach. 
Grandmother never likes to start for church until 
after all the Seminary girls and Academy boys have 



70 VllIAC.r 1 IFF IN AMFRICA [1S50 

gone b>". but this nioriiiiig wo got to the gate just 
as the boys ea:ne ;Uoug. W'heu C^iraiul'r,other saw 
h\e or six hats come oil and knew they were bowing 
to us. she asked us how we got acquainted with 
them. We told her that ahnost all the girls ktiew 
the Academy boys and 1 am sure that is true. 

Tuesday, Jv.nc S, — We arc clcanmg house now 
and Grandmother asked .Vuna and me to take ou.t a 
few tacks in the dnv.ng-roo:n carpet, Wc did not 
h.ke u so \"cr\' well but wc liked eating din.ncr m 
the parlor, as the table liad to be set m there. Atma 
told us that when she got married wc could come to 
visit her any time m the year as she was nc\-cr going 
to clean house. \\'c went down street on an errand 
to-night and hurried right back, as Grandmother 
said she should look at the clock and see how long 
wc were gone. Fm.ma Wdieeler went with us. 
Antia says she and Emma are as " tlnck as hasty 
pudding." 

June. — RcN-. F^rederick Starr, of Penn Van. had 
an exhibitioti in Bemis Hall to-day of a tabertiacle 

nist like the children of F^racl carried with them to 
the Promised Fand. We weitt to sec it. He made 
it himself and said he took all the directions from 
the Bible attd kiuwv where to put the curtains and 
the poles and e\-erythitig. It was ititcrcsting but we 
thought it would be queer not to h.n-c am- church 
to eo to but one like that, that vou could take down 



i85^1 VW.l.Mjh LWl. f.\ AMl.PICA 71 

rind [jijt iijv arvl carry around witli you wherev^-.r you 
went. 



June. — Re/.-. Mr. Kendall i:^ not ^(oJrig to preach 
]n f'.ast Bloornfjeld any more, '['he f^aj^er .says he 
is ^^o]nr/ to Xew V'ork to li'/e and be Secretary of 
the A.fi.CIv.M. [ a.ked Grandmother what that 
meant, and she said he would ha-/e to write dov.m 
what tlif; rnis-donaries do. I ^^ue-'^ that will keep 
him f>u:-y. ''/rand fatlier's nfjjhev/, a Mr. Adams of 
Jiostr^n and In'-^ wii'e, vi:-.ited u'^ ahout two weeks ago. 
He is the head of the firm Adams' Plxpress Co. 
Anna asked tliem if they ever hearr] tlie conundrum 
" What was f'/ve made for?" and they sairl no, so 
she tolrl them, the answer, " for Adam's expre:^s com- 
pany." d'hey thou,i^ht it was rjuite goorj. Wlien 
they reached home, tliey sent us each a reticule, with 
scissors, thimhie, stiletto, needle-case and tiny pen- 
knife anrl some stamped embroidery. They must 
be very rich. 



Saturday Night, July. — Grandfather was asking 
us to-night how many things we could rememljcr, 
and I tolrl him 1 could remember wdien Zachary Tay- 
lor died, and r;ur church was rlraped in black, and 
Mr. Daggett preacher! a funeral sermon about him, 
and I could remember when Daniel Webster died, 
and there was service held in the church and his last 
words, " I still live," were put up over the pulpit. 
He said he could remember when George Washing- 



72 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

ton died and when Benjamin Franklin died. He 
was seven years old then and he was seventeen when 
Washington died. Of course his memory goes far- 
ther back than mine, but he said I did very well, 
considering. 



July. — I have not written in my journal for sev- 
eral days because we have been out of town. 
Grandfather had to go to Victor on business and 
took Anna and me with him. Anna says she loves 
to ride on the cars as it is fun to watch the trees 
and fences run so. We took dinner at Dr. Ball's 
and came home on the evening train. Then Judge 
Ellsworth came over from Penn Yan to see Grand- 
father on business and asked if he could take us 
home with him and he said yes, so we went and had 
a splendid time and stayed two days. Stewart was 
at home and took us all around driving and took us 
to the graveyard to see our mother's grave. I 
copied this verse from the gravestone: 

" Of gentle seeming was her form 
And the soft beaming of her radiant eye 
Was sunlight to the beauty of her face. 
Peace, sacred peace, was written on her brow 
And flowed in the low music of her voice 
Which came unto the listener like the tones of sooth- 
ing Autumn winds. 
Her hands were full of consolations which she scat- 
tered free to all — the poor, the sick, the sor- 
rowful." 



1836] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 73 

I think she must have been exactly Hke Grand- 
mother only she was 32 and Grandmother is ^2. 

Stewart went to prayer meeting because it was 
Wednesday night, and when he came home his 
mother asked him if he took part in the meeting. 
He said he did and she asked him what he said. 
He said he told the story of Ethan Allen, the infidel, 
who was dying, and his daughter asked him whose 
religion she should live by, his or her mother's, and 
he said, '' Your mother's, my daughter, your moth- 
er's." This pleased Mrs. Ellsworth very much. 
Stewart is a great boy and you never can tell 
whether he is in earnest or not. It was very warm 
while we were gone and when we got home Anna 
told Grandmother she was going to put on her 
barege dress and take a rocking-chair and a glass of 
ice water and a palm leaf fan and go down cellar 
and sit, but Grandmother told her if she would just 
sit still and take a book and get her mind on some- 
thing else besides the weather, she would be cool 
enough. Grandmother always looks as cool as a 
cucumber even when the thermometer is 90 in the 
shade. 

Sunday, August. — Rev. Anson D. Eddy preached 
this morning. His text was from the sixth chapter 
of John, 44th verse. '' No man can come to me, 
except the Father which hath sent me, draw him." 
He is Tom Eddy's father, and very good-looking 
and smart too. He used to be one of the ministers 



74 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1856 

of our church before Mr. Daggett came. He wrote 
a book in our Sunday School hbrary, about Old 
Black Jacob, and Grandmother loves to read it. 
We had a nice dinner to-day, green peas, lemonade 
and gooseberry pie. We had cold roast lamb too, 
because Grandmother never has any meat cooked on 
Sunday. 



Sunday. — Mr. Noah T. Clarke is superintendent 
of our Sunday School now^, and this morning he 
asked, '* What is prayer? " No one answered, so I 
stood up and gave the definition from the catechism. 
He seemed pleased and so was Grandmother when 
I told her. Anna said she supposes she w^as glad 
that " her labor was not in vain in the Lord." I 
think she is trying to see if she can say Bible verses, 
like grown-up people do. 

Grandfather said that I did better than the little 
boy he read about who, when a visitor asked the 
Sunday School children what was the ostensible 
object of Sabbath School instruction, waited till the 
question was repeated three times and then stood up 
and said, " Yes, sir." 

Wednesday. — We could not go to prayer meeting 
to-night because it rained, so Grandmother said we 
could go into the kitchen and stand by the window 
and hear the Methodists. We could hear every 
word that old Father Thompson said, and every 



1856] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 75 

hymn llicy sung, but Mr. Jervis used such big words 
we could not understand him at all. 

Sunday. — Grandmother says she loves to look at 
the beautiful white heads of Mr. Francis Granger 
and General Granger as they sit in their pews in 
church. She says that is what it means in the 
twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes where it says, " And 
the almond tree shall flourisli." I don't know ex- 
actly why it means them, but T sui)pose she does. 
We have got a lieautifnl aluKiud tree in our front 
yard covered with llcnvers, but the blossoms are pink. 
Probably they had white ones in Jerusalem, where 
Solomon lived. 

Monday.— Mr. Alex. Jeffrey has come from 
Lexington, Ky., and brought Mrs. Ross and his 
three daughters, Julia, Shaddie and Bessie Jeffrey. 
Mrs. Ross knows Grandmother and came to call 
and brought the girls. They are very pretty and 
General Granger's grand-daughters. I think they 
are going to stay all summer. 

Thanksgiving Day. — We all went to church and 
Dr. Daggett's text was : '' He hath not dealt so 
with any nation." Aunt Glorianna and her children 
were here and Uncle Field and all tlieir family and 
Dr. Carr and all his family. There were about six- 
teen of us in all and we children had a table in the 
corner all by ourselves. We had roast turkey and 



76 VILLAGE LIFE IN A:MERICA [1856 

everything else we could think of. After dinner 
we went into the parlor and Aunt Glorianna played 
on the piano and sang, *' Flow gently, sw^eet Afton, 
among thy green braes," and " Poor Bessie was a 
sailor's wife." These are Grandfather's favorites. 
Dr. Carr sang '' I'm sitting on the stile, ]\Iary, where 
we sat side by side." He is a beautiful singer. It 
seemed just like Sunday, for Grandmother never 
likes to have us work or play on Thanksgiving Day, 
but we had a very good time, indeed, and were sorry 
when they all went home. 

Saturday, Deccnihcr 20. — Lillie Reeve and her 
brother, Charlie, have come from Texas to live. 
He goes to the Academy and she boards with ^liss 
Antoinette Pierson. ]\liss Pierson invited me up to 
spend the afternoon and take tea with her and I 
went and had a very nice time. She told me about 
their camp life in Texas and how her mother died, 
and her little baby sister, Minnie, lives with her 
Grandmother Sheppard in Dansville. She is a very 
nice girl and I like her very much, indeed. 



1 857 

January 8. — Anna and Alice Jewett caught a ride 
down to the lake this afternoon on a bob-sleigh, and 
then caught a ride back on a load of frozen pigs. 
In jumping off, Anna tore her flannel petticoat from 
the band down. I did not enjoy the situation as 
much as Anna, because I had to sit up after she 
had gone to bed, and darn it by candle light, because 
she was afraid Grandmother might see the rent and 
inquire into it, and that would put an end to bob- 
sled exploits. 

March 6. — Anna and her set will have to square 
accounts with Mr. Richards to-morrow, for nine of 
them ran away from school this afternoon, Alice 
Jewett, Louisa Field, Sarah Antes, Hattie Paddock, 
Helen Coy, Jennie Ruckel, Frankie Younglove, 
Emma Wheeler and Anna. They went out to Mn 
Sackett's, where they are making maple sugar. Mr. 
and Mrs. Sackctt w^ere at home and two Miss Sack- 
etts and Darius, and they asked them in and gave 
them all the sugar they wanted, and Anna said 
pickles, too, and bread and butter, and the more 
pickles they ate the more sugar they could eat. I 
guess they will think of pickles when Mr. Richards 
asks them where they were. I think Ellie Daggett 

77 



78 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

and Charlie Paddock went, too, and some of the 
Academy boys. 

March 7. — They all had to stay after school to- 
night for an hour and copy Dictionary. Anna 
seems reconciled, for she just wrote in her journal: 
" It was a very good plan to keep us because no one 
ever ought to stay out of school except on account 
of sickness, and if they once get a thing fixed in 
their minds it will stay there, and when they grow 
up it will do them a great deal of good." 

April. — Grandfather gave us 10 cents each this 
morning for learning the 46th Psalm and has prom- 
ised us $1 each for reading the Bible through in a 
year. We were going to any way. Some of the 
girls say they should think we would be afraid of 
Grandfather, he is so sober, but we are not the least 
bit. He let us count $1,000 to-night which a Mr. 
Taylor, a cattle buyer, brought to him in the evening 
after banking hours. Anybody must be very rich 
who has all that money of their own. 

Friday. — Our old horse is dead and we will have 
to buy another. He was very steady and faithful. 
One day Grandfather left him at the front gate and 
he started along and turned the corner all right, 
down the Methodist lane and went way down to our 
barn doors and stood there until Mr. Piser came 
and took him into the barn. People said they set 



i857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 79 

their clocks by him because it was always quarter 
past 12 when he was driven down to the bank after 
Grandfather and quarter of i when he came back. 
I don't think the clocks would ever be too fast if 
they were set by him. We asked Grandfather what 
he died of and he said he had run his race but I 
think he meant he had walked it, for I never saw 
him go off a jog in my life. Anna used to say he 
was taking a nap when we were out driving wath 
Grandfather. I have wTitten some lines in his mem- 
ory and if I knew where he was buried, I would 
print it on his head board. 



Old Dobbin's dead, that good old horse. 
We ne'er shall see him more. 

He always used to lag behind 
But now he's gone before. 



It is a parody on old Grimes is dead, which is in 
our reader, only that is a very long poem. I am 
not going to show mine to Grandfather till he gets 
over feeling bad about the horse. 

Sunday. — Grandmother gave Anna, Doddridge's 
*' Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul " to 
read to-day. Anna says she thinks she will have 
to rise and progress a good deal before she will be 
able to appreciate it. Baxter's '' Saints Rest " 
would probably suit her better. 



8o VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

Sunday, April 5. — An agent for the American 
Board of Foreign Missions preached this morning 
in our church from Romans 10: 15: *' How shall 
they hear without a preacher and how shall they 
preach except they he sent." An agent from every 
society presents the cause, whatever it is, once a 
year and some people think the anniversary comes 
around very often. I always think of Mrs. George 
Wilson's poem on " A apele for air, pewer air, certin 
proper for the pews, which, she sez, is scarce as 
piety, or bank bills when ajents beg for mischuns, 
wich sum say is purty often, (taint nothin' to me, 
wat I give aint nothin' to nobody)." I think that 
is about the best poem of its kind I ever read. 

Miss Lizzie Bull told us in Sunday School to-day 
that she cannot be our Sunday School teacher any 
more, as she and her sister Mary are going to join 
the Episcopal Church. We hate to have her go, 
but what can't be cured must be endured. Part of 
our class are going into Miss Mary Howell's class 
and part into Miss Annie Pierce's. They are both 
splendid teachers and Miss Lizzie Bull is another. 
We had preaching in our church this afternoon, too. 
Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, of Le Roy Female Semi- 
nary, preached. He is a great man, very large, long 
white hair combed back. I think if a person once 
saw him they would never forget him. He preached 
about Melchisidek, who had neither '' beginning of 
days or end of life." Some people thought that 
was like his sermon, for it was more than one hour 



1857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 81 

long. Dr. Cox and Mrs. Taylor came to call and 
asked Grandfather to let me go to Le Roy Female 
Seminary, but Grandfather likes Ontario Female 
Seminary better than any other in the world. We 
wanted Grandmother to have her picture taken, but 
she did not feel able to go to Mr. Finley's, so he 
came up Tuesday and took it in our dining-room. 
She had her best cap on and her black silk dress and 
sat in her high back rocking chair in her usual cor- 
ner near the window. He brought one up to show 
us and we like it so much. Anna looked at it and 
kissed it and said, '' Grandmother, I think you are 
perfectly beautiful." She smiled and very modestly 
put her handkerchief up to her face and said, " You 
foolish child," but I am sure she was pleased, for 
how could she help it ? A man came up to the open 
window one day where she was sitting, with some- 
thing to sell, and while she was talking to him he 
said, " You must have been handsome, lady, when 
you w^ere young." Grandmother said it was be- 
cause he wanted to sell his wares, but we thought 
he knew it was so. We told her she couldn't get 
around il that way and we asked Grandfather and 
he said it was true. Our Sunday School class went 
to Mr. Finley's to-day and had a group ambrotype 
taken for our teacher. Miss Annie Pierce ; Susie 
Daggett, Clara Willson, Sarah Whitney, Mary Field 
and myself. Mary Wheeler ought to have been in 
it, too, but we couldn't get her to come. We had 
very good success. 



82 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

Thursday. — We gave the ambrotype to Miss 
Pierce and she liked it very much and so does her 
mother and Fannie. Her mother is lame and can- 
not go anywhere so we often go to see her and she 
is always glad to see us and so pleasant. 

May 9. — Miss Lizzie Bull came for me to go bot- 
anising with her this morning and we were gone 
from 9 till 12, and went clear up to the orphan asy- 
lum. I am afraid I am not a born botanist, for all 
the time she was analysing the flowers and telling 
me about the corona and the corolla and the calyx 
and the stamens and petals and pistils, I was think- 
ing what beautiful hands she had and how dainty 
they looked, pulling the blossoms all to pieces. I 
am afraid I am commonplace, like the man we read 
of in English literature, who said " a primrose by 
the river brim, a yellow primrose, was to him, and 
it was nothing more." 

Mr. William Wood came to call this afternoon 
and gave us some morning-glory seeds to sow and 
told us to write down in our journals that he did so. 
So here it is. What a funny old man he is. Anna 
and Emma Wheeler went to Hiram Tousley's 
funeral to-day. She has just written in her journal 
that Hiram's corpse was very perfect of him and 
that Fannie looked very pretty in black. She also 
added that after the funeral Grandfather took Aunt 
Ann and Lucilla out to ride to Mr. Howe's and just 
as they got there it sprinkled. She says she don't 



i857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 83 

know " weather " they got wet or not. She went 
to a picnic at Sucker Brook yesterday afternoon, 
and this is the w^ay she described it in her journal. 
" Miss Hurlburt told us all to w^ear rubbers and 
shawls and bring some cake and we would have a 
picnic. We had a very warm time. It was very 
warm indeed and I was most roasted and we were 
all very thirsty indeed. We had in all the party 
about 40 of us. It was very pleasant and I enjoyed 
myself exceedingly. We had boiled eggs, pickles, 
Dutch cheese and sage cheese and loaf cake and 
raisin cake, pound cake, dried beef and capers, jam 
and tea cakes and gingerbread, and we tried to catch 
some fish but we couldn't, and in all we had a very 
nice time. I forgot to say that I picked some flow- 
ers for my teacher. I went to bed tired out and 
worn out." 

Her next entry was the following day when she 
and the other scholars dressed up to " speak pieces." 
She says, " After dinner I went and put on my rope 
petticoat and lace one over it and my barege de laine 
dress and all my rings and white bask and breastpin 
and worked handkerchief and spoke my piece. It 
was, ' When I look up to yonder sky.' It is very 
pretty indeed and most all the girls said I looked 
nice and said it nice. They were all dressed up, 



Thursday. — I asked Grandfather why we do not 
have gas in the house like almost every one else 



84 VILLAe-^TE LIFE IN AMERICA [1S57 

and he said because it was bad lor the eyes and he 
hked candles and sperm oil better. We have the 
funniest little sperm oil lamp with a shade on to read 
by evenings and the tire on the hearth gives Grand- 
father and Grandmother all the light they want, for 
she knits in her corner and we read aloud to ihem 
if they want us to. 1 think if Grandfather is proud 
of anything besides being a Bostonian, it is that 
everything in the house is forty years old. The 
shovel and tongs and andirons and fender and the 
haircloth sofa and the haircloth rocking chair and 
the tlag bottomed chairs painted dark green and the 
two old arm-chairs which belong to them and no one 
else ever thinks of touching. There is a wootlen par- 
tition between the dining-room and parlor and they 
say it can slide right up out of sight on pulleys, so 
that it would be all one room. We have often said 
that we wished we could see it go up but they say 
it has never been up since the day our mother was 
married and as she is dead I suppose it would make 
them feel bad. so we probably will always ha\e it 
down. There are nc^ curtains or even shades at the 
windows, because Grandfather says, " light is sweet 
and a pleasant thing it is to behold the stin." The 
piano is in the parlor and it is the same one that our 
mother had when she was a little irirl but we like it 
all the better for that. There are four large oil 
paintings on the parlor wall, De Witt Clinton, Rev. 
l\Ir. Dwight, Uncle Elenry Channing Reals and Aunt 
Lucilla Bates, and no matter where we sit in the 



,857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 85 

room they arc watching and their eyes seem to move 
whenever we do. There is quite a handsome lamp 
on a mahogany center table, but I never saw it 
lighted. We have four sperm candles in four silver 
candlesticks and when we have company we light 
them. Johnnie Thompson, son of the minister, 
Kev. M. L. R. P-, has come to the academy to school 
and he is very full of fun and got acquainted with 
all the girls very quick. He told us this afternoon 
to have " the other candle lit " for he was coming 
down to see us this evening. Will Schley heard him 
say it and he said he was coming too. His mother 
says she always knows when he has been at our 
house, because she finds sperm on his clothes and has 
to take brown paper and a hot flatiron to get it out, 
but still I do not think that Mrs. Schley cares, for 
she is a very nice lady and she and I are great 
friends. 1 presume she would just as soon he 
would spend part of his time with us as to be with 
Plorace Finley all the time. Those boys are just 
like twins. We never see one without being sure 
that the other is not far away. 

l^atcr. — The boys came and we had a very 
pleasant evening but when the 9 o'clock bell rang we 
heard Grandfather winding up the clock and scrap- 
ing up the ashes on the hearth to cover the fire so it 
would last till morning and we all understood the 
signal and they bade us good-night. " We won't 



86 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

go home till morning " is a song that will never be 
sung in this house. 



June 2. — Abbie Clark wrote such a nice piece in 
my album to-day I am going to write it in my jour- 
nal. Grandfather says he likes the sentiment as 
well as any in my book. This is it : " It has been 
said that the friendship of some people is like our 
shadow, keeping close by us while the sun shines, 
deserting us the moment we enter the shade, but 
think not such is the friendship of Abbie S. Clark." 
Abbie and I took supper at Miss Mary Howell's to- 
night to see Adele Ives. We had a lovely time. 

Tuesday. — General Tom Thumb was in town to- 
day and everybody who wanted to see him could go 
to Bemis Hall. Twenty-five cents for old people, 
and 10 cents for children, but we could see him for 
nothing when he drove around town. He had a 
little carriage and two little bits of ponies and a little 
boy with a high silk hat on, for the driver. He sat 
inside the coach but we could see him looking out. 
We went to the hall in the afternoon and the man 
who brought him stood by him and looked like a 
giant and told us all about him. Then he asked 
Tom Thumb to make a speech and stood him upon 
the table. He told all the ladies he would give 
them a kiss if they would come up and buy his pic- 
ture. Some of them did. 



i857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 87 

Friday, July. — I have not kept a journal for two 
weeks because we have been away visiting. Anna 
and I had an invitation to go to Utica to visit Rev. 
and Mrs. Brandigee. He is rector of Grace Epis- 
copal church there and his wife used to belong to 
Father's church in Morristown, N. J. Her name 
was Miss Condict. Rev. Mr. Stowe was going to 
Hamilton College at Clinton, so he said he would 
take us to Utica. We had a lovely time. The cor- 
ner stone of the church was laid while we were there 
and Bishop De Lancey came and stayed with us at 
Mr. Brandigee's. He is a very nice man and likes 
children. One morning they had muffins for break- 
fast and Anna asked if they were ragamuffins. Mr. 
Brandigee said, '' Yes, they are made of rags and 
brown paper," but we knew he was just joking. 
When we came away Mrs. Brandigee gave me a 
prayer book and Anna a vase, but she didn't like it 
and said she should tell Mrs. Brandigee she wanted 
a prayer book too, so I had to change with her. 
When we came home Mr. Brandigee put us in care 
of the conductor. There was a fine soldier looking 
man in the car with us and we thought it was his 
wife with him. He wore a blue coat and brass but- 
tons, and some one said his name was Custer and 
that he was a West Point cadet and belonged to the 
regular army. I told Anna she had better behave 
or he would see her, but she would go out and 
stand on the platform until the conductor told her 
not to. I pulled her dress and looked very stern at 



88 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

her and motioned toward Mr. Custer, but it did not 
seem to have any impression on her. I saw Mr. 
Custer smile once because my words had no effect. 
I was glad when we got to Canandaigua. I heard 
some one say that Dr. Jewett was at the depot to 
take Mr. Custer and his wife to his house, but I only 
saw Grandfather coming after us. He said, '' Well, 
girls, you have been and you have got back," but I 
could see that he was glad to have us at home again, 
even if we are '' troublesome comforts," as he some- 
times says. 

July 4. — Barnum's circus was in town to-day and 
if Grandmother had not seen the pictures on the 
hand bills I think she would have let us go. She 
said it was all right to look at the creatures God had 
made but she did not think He ever intended that 
women should go only half dressed and stand up and 
ride on horses bare back, or jump through hoops in 
the air. So we could not go. We saw the street 
parade though and heard the band play and saw the 
men and women in a chariot, all dressed so fine, and 
we saw a big elephant and a little one and a camel 
with an awful hump on his back, and we could hear 
the lion roar in the cage, as they went by. It must 
have been nice to sec them close to and probably we 
will some day. 

August 8. — Grandfather has given me his wiiole 
set of Waverley novels and his whole set of Shake- 



"^ 



y: 




Grandmother's Rocking Chair 



The Grandfather Clock 



i857] VILLAGE LIKE IN AMERICA 89 

spearc's plays, and has onlered Mr. Jaliii, the cahi- 
nclniaker, to make me a hhiek wahiiit hookease, with 
gkiss doors and three deep (hawers underneath, 
with brass handles. He is so good. Ainui says 
perha[)s he thinks 1 am going to be married and go 
to housekeeping some day. Well, perhaps he does. 
Stranger things have hai)pened. " Barkis is will- 
in'," and I always like to please Cirandfather. I 
have just read David Copperheld and was so inter- 
ested 1 eould not leave it alone till I hnished it. 

September i. — Anna and [ have been in Liteh- 
field, Conn., at leather's sehool for boys. It is kept 
in (he old l>eeeher house, where Dr. Lyman Beeeher 
lived. We went up into the attie, whieh is light and 
airy, where they say lie used to write his famous ser- 
mons. James is one of the teaehers and he eame 
for us. We went to l^^armington and saw all the 
Covvles families, as they are our cousins. Then we 
drove by the Charter Oak and saw all there is left 
of it. It was blown clown last year but the stump 
is fenced around, in Hartford we visited Gallau- 
det's Institution for the deaf and dumb and went to 
the historical rooms, where we saw some of Ceorge 
Washington's clothes and his watch and his pen- 
knife, but we did not see his little hatchet. We 
stayed two weeks in New York and vicinity before 
we came liome. Uncle Lulward took us to Christie's 
Minstrels and the Hippodrome, so we saw all the 
things we missed seeing when the circus was here in 



90 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

town. Grandmother seemed surprised when we 
told her, but she didn't say much because she was so 
glad to have us at home again. Anna said we ought 
to bring a present to Grandfather and Grandmother, 
for she read one time about some children w^ho went 
away and came back grown up and brought home 
" busts of the old philosophers for the sitting-room," 
so as we saw some busts of George Washington and 
Benjamin Franklin in plaster of paris we bought 
them, for they look almost like marble and Grand- 
father and Grandmother like them. Speaking of 
busts reminds me of a conundrum I heard while I 
was gone. *' How do we know that Poe's Raven 
was a dissipated bird? Because he was all night on 
a bust." Grandfather took us down to the bank to 
see how he had it made over while we were gone. 
We asked him why he had a beehive hanging out for 
a sign and he said, " Bees store their honey in the 
summer for winter use and men ought to store their 
money against a rainy day." He has a swing door 
to the bank v^ith '' Push " on it. He said he saw a 
man studying it one day and finally looking up he 
spelled p-u-s-h, push (and pronounced it like mush). 
"What does that mean?" Grandfather showed 
him what it meant and he thought it was very con- 
venient. He was about as thick-headed as the man 
who saw some snufifers and asked what they were 
for and when told to snuff the candle with, he imme- 
diately snuffed the candle with his fingers and put it 
in the snuffers and said, " Law sakes, how handy ! " 



1857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 91 

Grandmother really laughed when she read this in 
the paper. 

September. — Mrs. Martin, of Albany, is visiting 
Aunt Ann, and she brought Grandmother a fine fish 
that was caught in the Atlantic Ocean. We went 
over and asked her to come to dinner to-morrow and 
help eat it and she said if it did not rain pitchforks 
she would come, so I think w^e may expect her. Her 
granddaughter, Hattie Blanchard, has come here to 
go to the seminary and will live with Aunt Ann. 
She is a very pretty girl. Mary Field came over 
this morning and we went down street together. 
Grandfather w^ent wnth us to Mr. Nat Gorham's 
store, as he is selling off at cost, and got Grand- 
mother and me each a new pair of kid gloves. Hers 
are black and mine are green. Hers cost six shil- 
lings and mine cost five shillings and six pence ; very 
cheap for such nice ones. Grandmother let Anna 
have six little girls here to supper to-night : Louisa 
Field, Hattie Paddock, Helen Coy, Martha Dens- 
more, Emma Wheeler and Alice Jewett. We had a 
splendid supper and then we played cards. I do not 
mean regular cards, mercy no! Grandfather thinks 
those kind are contagious or outrageous or some- 
think dreadful and never keeps them in the house. 
Grandmother said they found a pack once, when the 
hired man's room was cleaned, and they went into 
the fire pretty quick. The kind we played was 
just " Dr. Busby," and another " The Old Soldier 



92 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

and His Dog." There are counters with them, and 
if you don't have the card called for you have to 
pay one into the pool. It is real fun. They all said 
they had a very nice time, indeed, when they bade 
Grandmother good-night, and said : '' Mrs. Beals, 
you must let Carrie and Anna come and see us some 
time," and she said she would. I think it is nice to 
have company. 

Christinas. — Grandfather and Grandmother do 
not care much about making Christmas presents. 
They say, when they were young no one observed 
Christmas or New Years, but they always kept 
Thanksgiving day. Our cousins, the Fields and 
Carrs, gave us several presents and Uncle Edward 
sent us a basket full from New York by express. 
Aunt Ann gave me one of the Lucy books and a 
Franconia story book and to Anna, " The Child's 
Book on Repentance." When y\nna saw the title, 
she whispered to me and said if she had done any- 
thing she was sorry for she was willing to be for- 
given. I am afraid she will never read hers but I 
will lend her mine. Miss Lucy Ellen Guernsey, of 
Rochester, gave me " Christmas Framings " and 
wrote in it, " Carrie C. Richards with the love of 
the author." I think that is very nice. Anna and 
I were chattering like two magpies to-day, and a 
man came in to talk to Grandfather on business. 
He told us in an undertone that children should be 
seen and not heard. After he had gone I saw Anna 



i857] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 93 

watching him a long time till he was only a speck in 
the distance and I asked her what she was doing. 
She said she was doing it because it was a sign if 
you watched persons out of sight you would never 
see them again. She does not seem to have a very 
forgiving spirit, but you can't always tell. 

Mr. William Wood, the venerable philanthropist 
of whotu Canandaigua has been justly proud for 
many years, is dead. 1 have preserved this poem, 
written by Mrs. George Willson in his honor: 

" Mk. KonoR— The fc^llovving lines were written by 
a lady of this village, and have been heretofore pub- 
lished, but on reading in your last paper the interest- 
ing extract relating to the late William Wood, Esq., 
it\vas suggested that they be again published, not 
only for their merit, but also to keep alive the memory 
of one who has done so much to ornament our vil- 
lage.— II." 

When first on this stage of existence we come 
Blind, deaf, puny, helpless, but not. alas, dumb, 
What can please us, and soothe us, and make us sleep 

good ? 
To be rocked in a cradle ;— and cradles are wood. 

When older we grow, and we enter the schools 
Where masters break rulers o'er boys who break rules, 
What can curb and restrain and make laws understood 
But the birch-twig and ferule?— and both are of wood. 

When old age— second childhood, takes vigor away, 
And we totter along toward our home in the clay. 



94 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1857 

What can aid us to stand as in manhood we stood 
But our tried, trusty staff? — and the staff is of wood. 

And when from this stage of existence we go, 
And death drops the curtain on all scenes below. 
In our coffins we rest, while for worms we are food. 
And our last sleeping place, like our first, is of wood. 

Then honor to wood ! fresh and strong may it grow, 
'Though winter has silvered its summit with snow ; 
Embowered in its shade long our village has stood ; 
She'd scarce be Canandaigua if stripped of her Wood. 



Stanza added after the death of Mr. Wood 

The sad time is come; she is stript of her Wood, 
Though the trees that he planted still stand where they 

stood, 
Still with storms they can wrestle with arms stout and 

brave ; 
Still they wave o'er our dwellings — they droop o'er his 

grave ! 
Alas ! that the life of the cherished and good 
Is more frail and more brief than the trees of the 

wood! 



1858 

February 24, 1858. — The boarders at the Semi- 
nary had some tableaux last evening and invited a 
great many from the village. As we went in with 
the crowd, we heard some one say, '' Are they going 
to have tableaux ? Well, I thought I smelt them ! " 
They were splendid. Mr. Chubbuck was in nearly 
all of them. The most beautiful one was Abraham 
offering up Isaac. Mr. Chubbuck was Abraham 
and Sarah Ripley w^as Isaac. After the tableaux 
they acted a charade. The word was '' Master- 
piece." It was fine. After the audience got half 
way out of the chapel Mr. Richards announced 
" The Belle of the Evening." The curtain rose and 
every one rushed back, expecting to see a young lady 
dressed in the height of fashion, when immediately 
the Seminary bell rang! Mr. Blessner's scholars 
gave all the music and he stamped so, beating time, 
it almost drowned the music. Some one suggested 
a bread and milk poultice for his foot. Anna has 
been taking part in some private theatricals. The 
play is in contrast to *' The Spirit of 'y6 " and the 
idea carried out is that the men should stay at home 
and rock the cradles and the women should take the 
rostrum. Grandmother was rather opposed to the 
idea, but every one wanted Anna to take the part of 

95 



96 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1858 

leading lady, so she consented. She even helped 
Anna make her bloomer suit and sewed on the braid 
for trimming on the skirt herself. She did not 
know that Anna's opening sentence was, " How are 
you, sir ? Cigar, please ! " It was acted at Mrs. 
John Bates' house on Gibson Street and was a great 
success, but when they decided to repeat it another 
evening Grandmother told Anna she must choose be- 
tween going on the stage and living with her Grand- 
mother, so Anna gave it up and some one else took 
her part. 

March. — There is a great deal said about spirits 
nowadays and a lot of us girls went into one of the 
recitation rooms after school to-night and had a 
spiritual seance. We sat around Mr. Chubbuck's 
table and put our hands on it and it moved around 
and stood on two legs and sometimes on one. I 
thought the girls helped it but they said they didn't. 
We heard some loud raps, too, but they sounded 
very earthly to me. Eliza Burns, one of the board- 
ers, told us if we would hold our breath we could 
pick up one of the girls from the floor and raise her 
up over our heads with one finger of each hand, if 
the girl held her breath, too. We tried it with 
Anna and did it, but we had such hard work to keep 
from laughing I expected we would drop her. 
There is nothing very spirituelle about any of us. 
I told Grandmother and she said we reminded her of 
Jemima Wilkinson, who told all her followers that 



1858] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 97 

the world was to come to an end on a certain day 
and they should all be dressed in white and get up 
on the roofs of the houses and be prepared to ascend 
and meet the Lord in the air. I asked Grandmother 
what she said when nothing happened and she said 
she told them it was because they did not have faith 
enough. If they had, everything would have hap- 
pened just as she said. Grandmother says that one 
day at a time has always been enough for her and 
that to-morrow will take care of the things of itself. 

May, 1858. — Several of us girls went up into the 
top of the new Court House to-day as far as the 
workmen would allow us. We got a splendid view 
of the lake and of all the country round. Abbie 
Clark climbed up on a beam and recited part of 
Alexander Selkirk's soliloquy : 

" Fm monarch of all I survey, 
My rights there are none to dispute : 
From the center, all round to the sea, 
I'm lord of the fowl and brute." 

I was standing on a block and she said I looked 
like " Patience on a monument smiHng at Grief." I 
am sure she could not be taken for '' Grief." She 
always has some quotation on her tongue's end. 
We were down at Sucker Brook the other day and 
she picked her way out to a big stone in the middle 
of the stream and, standing on it, said, in the words 
of Rhoderick Dhu, 



98 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1858 

" Come one, come all, this rock shall fly 
From its firm base^ as soon as I." 



Just then the big stone tipped over and she had 
to wade ashore. She is not at all afraid of climbing 
and as we left the Court House she said she would 
like to go outside on the cupola and help Justice bal- 
ance the scales. 

A funny old man came to our house to-day as he 
w^anted to deposit some money and reached the bank 
after it was closed. We were just sitting down to 
dinner so Grandfather asked him to stay and have 
'' pot luck " with us. He said that he was very 
much '' obleeged " and stayed and passed his plate 
a second time for more of our very fine " pot luck." 
We had boiled beef and dumplings and I suppose he 
thought that was the name of the dish. He talked 
so queer we couldn't help noticing it. He said he 
'* heered " so and he was " afeered " and somebody 
was very " deef " and they " hadn't ought to have 
done it " and '' they should have w^ent " and such 
things. Anna and I almost laughed but Grand- 
mother looked at us with her eye and forefinger so 
w^e sobered down. She told us afterwards that 
there are many good people in the world whose 
verbs and nouns do not agree, and instead of laugh- 
ing at them we should be sure that we always speak 
correctly ourselves. Very true. Dr. Daggett was 
at the Seminary one day w-hen we had public exer- 
cises and he told me afterwards that I said 



1858] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 99 

''sagac-ioiis " for " saga-cious " and Aunt Ann told 
me that I said " epi-tome " for " e-pit-o-me." So 
" people that live in glass houses shouldn't throw 
stones." 

Sunday. — Grandfather read his favorite parable 
this morning at prayers — the one about the wise man 
who built his house upon a rock and the foolish man 
who built upon the sand. He reads it good, just 
like a minister. He prays good, too, and I know 
his prayer by heart. He says, " Verily Thou art 
our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us and 
Israel acknowledge us not,'' and he always says, 
" Thine arm is not shortened that it cannot save, 
or Thine ear heavy that it cannot hear." I am glad 
that I can remember it. 

June. — Cyrus W. Field called at our house to- 
day. He is making a trip through the States and 
stopped here a few hours because Grandmother is 
his aunt. He made her a present of a piece of the 
x\tlantic cable about six inches long, which he had 
mounted for her. It is a very nice souvenir. Fie 
is a tall, fine looking man and very pleasant. 

Sunday, July 4, 1858. — This is Communion Sun- 
day and quite a number united with the church 
on profession of their faith. Mr. Gideon Granger 
was one of them. Grandmother says that she has 
known him always and his father and mother, and 



loo VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1858 

she thinks he is Hke John, the beloved disciple. I 
think that any one who knows him, knows what is 
meant by a gentle-man. I have a picture of Christ 
in the Temple with the doctors, and His face is 
almost exactly like Mr. Granger's. Some others 
who joined to-day were Miss Belle Paton, Miss Lot- 
tie Clark and Clara Willson, Mary Wheeler and 
Sarah Andrews. Dr. Daggett always asks all the 
communicants to sit in the body pews and the non- 
communicants in the side pews. We always feel 
like the goats on the left when we leave Grandfather 
and Grandmother and go on the side, but w^e won't 
have to always. Abbie Clark, Mary Field and I 
think we will join at the communion in September. 
Grandmother says she hopes we realize what a sol- 
emn thing it is. We are fifteen years old so I think 
we ought to. No one who hears Dr. Daggett say 
in his beautiful voice, '' I now renounce all w^ays of 
sin as what I truly abhor and choose the service of 
God as my greatest privilege," could think it any 
trifling matter. I feel as though I couldn't be bad 
if I wanted to be, and when he blesses them and 
says, '' May the God of the Everlasting Covenant 
keep you firm and holy to the end through Jesus 
Christ our Lord," everything seems complete. He 
always says at the close, '' And when they had sung 
an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives." 
Then he gives out the hymn, beginning: 

" According to Tliy gracious word, 
In deep humility, 



1858] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA loi 

This will 1 do, my dying Lord 
1 will remember Thee." 



And the last verse: 

" And when these failing lips grow dumb, 
And mind and memory flee, 
When in Thy kingdom Thou shalt come, 
Jesus remember me." 

Deacon Taylor always starts the hymn. Deacon 
Taylor and Deacon Tyler sit on one side of Dr. 
Daggett and Deacon Clarke and Deacon Castle on 
the other. Grandfather and Grandmother joined 
the church fifty-one years ago and are the oldest 
living members. She says they have always been 
glad that they took this step when they w^re young. 

August 17. — There was a celebration in towai 
to-day because the Queen's message was recci\ed on 
the Atlantic cable. Guns were fired and church 
bells rung and flags were waving everywhere. In 
the evening there was a torchlight procession and the 
town was all lighted up except Gibson Street. Allie 
Antes died this morning, so the people on that street 
kept their houses as usual. Anna says that prob- 
ably Allie xAntes was better prepared to die than any 
other little girl in town. Atwater hall and the 
academy and the hotel were more brilliantly illumi- 
nated than any other buildings. Grandfather saw 
something in a Boston paper that a minister said 



I02 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1858 

in his sermon about the Atlantic cable and he 
wants me to write it down in my journal. This is 
it : " The two hemispheres are now successfully 
united by means of the electric wire, but what is it, 
after all, compared with the instantaneous communi- 
cation between the Throne of Divine Grace and the 
heart of man? Offer up your silent petition. It is 
transmitted through realms of unmeasured space 
more rapidly than the lightning's flash, and the 
answer reaches the soul e're the prayer has died 
away on the sinner's lips. Yet this telegraph, per- 
forming its saving functions ever since Christ died 
for men on Calvary, fills not the world with exulta- 
tion and shouts of gladness, with illuminations and 
bonfires and the booming of cannon. The reason 
is, one is the telegraph of this world and may pro- 
duce revolutions on earth ; the other is the sweet 
communication between Christ and the Christian 
soul and will secure a glorious immortality in 
Heaven." Grandfather appreciates anything like 
that and I like to please him. 

Grandfather says he thinks the 19th Psalm is a 
prophecy of the electric telegraph. '' Their line 
is gone out through all the earth and their words to 
the end of the world." It certainly sounds like it. 

Sunday. — Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is staying 
at Judge Taylor's and came with them to church 
to-day. Everybody knew that he was here and 
thought he would preach and the church was packed 



1858] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 103 

full. When he came in he went right to Judge 
Taylor's pew and sat with him and did not preach 
at all, but it was something to look at him. Mr. 
Daggett was away on his vacation and Rev. ]\Ir. 
Jervis of the M. E. church preached. I heard some 
people say they guessed even Mr. Beecher heard 
some new words to-day, for Mr. Jervis is quite a 
hand to make them up or find very long hard ones 
in the dictionary. 

August 30, 1858. — Rev. Mr. Tousley was hurt 
to-day by the falling of his barn which was being 
moved, and they think his back is broken and if he 
lives he can never sit up again. Only last Sunday 
he was in Sunday School and had us sing in mem- 
ory of Allie Antes: 

" A mourning class, a vacant seat. 
Tell us that one we loved to meet 
Will join our youthful throng no more, 
'Till all these changing scenes are o'er." 

And now he will never meet with us again and the 
children will never have another minister all their 
own. He thinks he may be able to write letters to 
the children and perhaps write his own life. We all 
hope he may be able to sit up if he cannot walk. 

We went to our old home in Penn Yan visiting- 
last week and stayed at Judge Ellsworth's. W^e 
called to see the Tunnicliffs and the Olivers, Wells, 
Jones, Shepards, Glovers, Bennetts, Judds and sev- 



I04 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1858 

eral other families. They were glad to see us for 
the sake of our father and mother. Father was 
their pastor from 1841 to 1847. 

Some one told us that when Bob and Henry 
Antes were small boys they thought they would like 
to try, just for once, to see how it would seem to 
be bad, so in spite of all of Mr. Tousley's sermons 
they went out behind the barn one day and in a 
whisper Bob said, " 1 swear," and Henry said, " So 
do I." Then they came int(j the house hooking 
guilty and (juite surprised, 1 suijpose, that they 
were not struck dead just as Ananias and Sapphira 
were for lying. 

September. — I read in a New York paper to-day 
that Hon. George Peabody, of England, i)resented 
Cyrus W. Field with a solid silver tea service of 
twelve pieces, which cost $4,000. The pieces bear 
likenesses of Mr. Peabody and Mr. Field, with the 
coat of arms of the Field family. The epergne is 
supported by a base representing the genius of 
America. 

We had experiments in the philosophy class to- 
day and took electric shocks. Mr. Chubbuck man- 
aged the battery which has two handles attached. 
Two of the girls each held one of these and we all 
took hold of hands making the circuit com])lete. 
After a while it jerked us almost to ])ieces and we 
asked Mr. Chubbuck to turn it off. Dana Luther, 
one of the Academy boys, walked up from the Post- 



1858] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 105 

office vvitli me this noon, lie lives in Naples and 
is Florence Younglove's cousin. We went to a 
ball game down on Pleasant Street after school. I 
got so far ahead of Anna coming home she called 
me her " distant relative." 



1 859 

January, 1859. — Mr. Woodruff came to see 
Grandfather to ask him if we could attend his sing- 
ing school. He is going to have it one evening each 
week in the chapel of our church. Quite a lot of 
the boys and girls are going, so we were glad when 
Grandfather gave his consent. Mr. Woodruff 
wants us all to sing by note and teaches ''do re me 
fa sol la si do " from the blackboard and beats time 
with a stick. He lets us have a recess, which is 
more fun than all the rest of it. He says if we 
practise well we can have a concert in Bemis Hall 
to end up with. What a treat that will be! 

February. — Anna has been teasing me all the 
morning about a verse which John Albert Granger 
Barker wrote in my album. He has a most fasci- 
nating lisp when he talks, so she says this is the 
way the verse reads : 

" Beauty of perthon, ith thertainly chawming 
Beauty of feachure, by no meanth alawming 
But give me in pwefrence, beauty of mind, 
Or give me Cawwie, with all thwee combined." 

It takes Anna to find " amuthement " in " evewy- 
thing." 

X06 



i859] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 107 

Mary Wheeler came over and pierced my ears 
to-day, so I can wear my new earrings that Uncle 
Edward sent me. She pinched my ear until it was 
numb and then pulled a needle through, threaded 
with silk. Anna would not stay in the room. She 
w^ants her's done but does not dare. It is all the 
fashion for girls to cut off their hair and friz it. 
Anna and I have cut off ours and Bessie Seymour 
got me to cut off her lovely long hair to-day. It 
won't be very comfortable for us to sleep with curl 
papers all over our heads, but we must do it now. 
I wanted my new dress waist which Miss Rosewarne 
is making, to hook up in front, but Grandmother 
said I would have to wear it that way all the rest 
of my life so I had better be content to hook it In 
the back a little longer. She said when Aunt Glo- 
rianna was married, in 1848, it was the fashion for 
grown up women to have their waists fastened in 
the back, so the bride had hers made that way but 
she thought it was a very foolish and inconvenient 
fashion. It is nice, though, to dress in style and 
look like other people. I have a Garibaldi w^aist and 
a Zouave jacket and a balmoral skirt. 

Sunday. — I asked Grandmother if I could write 
a letter to Father to-day, and she said I could begin 
it and tell him that I went to church and what Mr. 
Daggett's text was and then finish it to-morrow. I 
did so, but I wish I could do it all after I began. 
She said a verse from the Tract Primer: 



io8 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1859 

*' A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content 
And strength for the toil of to-morrow, 
But a Sabbath profaned, whatever be gained, 
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow." 



Monday. — We dressed up in new f angled cos- 
tumes to-day and wore them to school. Some of us 
wore dresses almost up to our knees and some wore 
them trailing on the ground. Some wore their hair 
twisted in knots and some let theirs hang down 
their backs. I wore my new waterfall for the first 
time and Abbie Clark said I looked like '* ?Iagar in 
the Wilderness." When she came in she looked 
like a fashion plate, bedecked with bow\s and ribbons 
and her hair up in a new w^ay. When she came 
in the door she stopped and said solemnly: ''If 
you have tears prepare to shed them now ! " Laura 
Chapin would not participate in the fun, for once. 
She said she thought '' Beauty unadorned was the 
dorndest." We did not have our lesson in mental 
philosophy very well so we asked Mr. Richards to 
explain the nature of dreams and their cause and 
effect. He gave us a very interesting talk, which 
occupied the whole hour. We listened with breath- 
less attention, so he must have marked us 100. 

There was a lecture at the seminary to-night and 
Rev. Dr. Hibbard, the Methodist minister, who lives 
next door above the Methodist church, came home 
with us. Grandmother was very much pleased 
when we told her. 



1859] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 109 

March i. — Our hired man has started a hot bed 
and we went down behind the barn to see it. 
Grandfather said he was up at 6 o'clock and walked 
up as far as Mr. Greig's lions and back again for 
exercise before breakfast. He seems to have the 
bloom of youth on his face as a reward. Anna says 
she saw '* Bloom of youth " advertised in the drug 
store and she is going to buy some. I know Grand- 
mother won't let her for it would be like " taking 
coal to Newcastle." 

April. — Anna wanted me to help her write a com- 
position last night, and we decided to write on *' Old 
Journals," so we got hers and mine both out and 
made selections and then she copied them. When 
we were on our way to school this morning we met 
Mr. E. M. Morse and Anna asked him if he did not 
want to read her composition that Carrie wrote for 
her. He made a very long face and pretended to 
be much shocked, but said he would like to read 
it, so he took it and also her album, which she asked 
him to write in. At night, on his w^ay home, he 
stopped at our door and left them both. When she 
looked in her album, she found this was what he 
had written : 

" Anna, when you have grown old and wear specta- 
cles and a cap, remember the boyish young man who 
saw your fine talents in 1859 and was certain you 
would add culture to nature and become the pride of 
Canandaigua. Do not forget also that no one deserves 
praise for anything done by others and that your 



no VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1859 

progress in wisdom and goodness will be watched by 
no one more anxiously than by your true friend, 

E. M. Morse." 

I think she might as well have told Mr. Morse 
that the old journals were as much hers as mine; 
but I think she likes to make out she is not as good 
as she is. Sarah Foster helped us to do our arith- 
metic examples to-day. She is splendid in mathe- 
matics. 

Much to our surprise Bridget Flynn, who has 
lived with us so long, is married. We didn't know 
she thought of such a thing, but she has gone. 
Anna and I have learned how to make rice and corn- 
starch puddings. We have a new girl in Bridget's 
place but I don't think she will do. Grandmother 
asked her to-day if she seasoned the gravy and she 
said, either she did or she didn't, she couldn't tell 
which. Grandfather says he thinks she is a little 
lacking in the *' upper story." 

June. — A lot of us went down to Sucker Brook 
this afternoon. Abbie Clark was one and she told 
us some games to play sitting down on the grass. 
We played '' Simon says thumbs up " and then we 
pulled the leaves off from daisies and said, 

" Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, 
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief," 

to see which we would marry. The last leaf tells 
the story. Anna's came " rich man " every time 



i859] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA in 

and she thinks it is true because Eugene Stone has 
asked to marry her and he is quite well off. She is 
13 and he is 17. He is going now to his home in 
St. Paul, Minn., but he is coming back for her some 
day. Tom Eddy is going to be groomsman and 
Emma Wheeler bridesmaid. They have all the ar- 
rangements made. She has not shown any of Eu- 
gene Stone's notes to Grandmother yet for she does 
not think it is worth while. Anna broke the seal 
on Tom Eddy's page in her mystic book, although 
he wrote on it, " Not to be opened until December 
8, 1859." He says: 



" Dear Anna, — I hope that in a few years I will 
see you and Stone living on the banks of the 
Mississippi, in a little cottage, as snug as a bug in a 
rug, living in peace, so that I can come and see you 
and have a good time. — Yours, 

Thos. C. Eddy." 



Anna says if she does marry Eugene Stone and 
he forgets, after two or three years to be as polite 
to her as he is now she shall look up at him with her 
sweetest smile and say, " Miss Anna, won't you 
have a little more sugar in your tea ? " When I 
went to school this morning Juliet Ripley asked, 
" Where do you think Anna Richards is now ? Up 
in a cherry tree in Dr. Cheney's garden." Anna 
loves cherries. We could see her from the chapel 
window. 



112 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1859 

June 7. — Alice Jewett took Anna all through 
their new house to-day which is being built and 
then they went over to Mr. Noah T. Clarke's partly 
finished house and went all through that. A dog 
came out of Cat Alley and barked at them and 
scared Anna awfully. She said she almost had a 
conniption fit but Emma kept hold of her. She is 
so afraid of thunder and lightning and dogs. 

Old Friend Burling brought Grandfather a speci- 
men of his handwriting to-day to keep. It is beau- 
tifully written, like copper plate. This is the verse 
he wrote and Grandfather gave it to me to paste in 
my book of extracts : 

DIVINE LOVE. 

Could we with ink the ocean fill, 

Was the whole earth of parchment made, 
Was every single stick a quill, 

And every man a scribe by trade ; 
To write the love of God above 

Would drain the ocean dry ; 
Nor could that scroll contain the whole 

Though stretched from sky to sky. 

Transcribed by William S. Burling, Canandaigua, 
1859, in the 83rd year of his age. 

Sunday, December 8, 1859. — Mr. E. M. Morse is 
our Sunday School teacher now and the Sunday 
School room is so crowded that we go up into the 
church for our class recitation. Abbie Clark, Fan- 



i859] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 113 

nie Gaylord and myself are the only scholars, and 
he calls us the three christian graces, faith, hope and 
charity, and the greatest of these is charity. I am 
the tallest, so he says I am charity. We recite in 
Mr. Gibson's pew, because it is farthest away and 
we do not disturb the other classes. He gave us 
some excellent advice to-day as to what was right 
and said if we ever had any doubts about anything 
we should never do it and should always be perfectly 
sure we are in the right before we act. He gave us 
two weeks ago a poem to learn by Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge. It is an apostrophe to God and very 
hard to learn. It is blank verse and has 85 lines 
in it. I have it committed at last and we are to 
recite it in concert. The last two lines are, " Tell 
thou the silent sky and tell the stars and tell yon 
rising sun. Earth with its thousand voices praises 
God." Mr. Morse delivered a lecture in Bemis Hall 
last Thursday night. The subject was, '' You and 
I." It was splendid and he lent me the manuscript 
afterwards to read. Dick Valentine lectured in the 
hall the other night too. His subject was " Preju- 
dice." There was some difference in the lectures 
and the lecturers. The latter was more highly col- 
ored. 

Friday. — The older ladies of the town have 
formed a society for the relief of the poor and are 
going to have a course of lectures in Bemis Hall 
under their auspices to raise funds. The lecturers 



114 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1859 

are to be from the village and are to be : Rev. O. 

E. Daggett, subject, '' Ladies and Gentlemen " ; Dr. 
Harvey Jewett, ''The House We Live In"; Prof. 

F. E. R. Chubbuck, " Progress "; Hon. H. W. Tay- 
lor, ''The Empty Place"; Prof. E. G. Tyler, 
" Finance "; Mr. N. T. Clark, " Chemistry "; E. M. 
Morse, " Graybeard and His Dogmas." The young 
ladies have started a society, too, and we have great 
fun and fine suppers. We met at Jennie Howell's 
to organize. We are to meet once in two weeks and 
are to present each member with an album bed quilt 
with all our names on when they are married. 
Susie Daggett says she is never going to be married, 
but we must make her a quilt just the same. Laura 
Chapin sang, " Mary Lindsey, Dear," and we got 
to laughing so that Susie Daggett and I lost our 
equilibrium entirely, but I found mine by the time 
I got home. Yesterday afternoon Grandfather 
asked us if we did not want to go to ride with him 
in the big two seated covered carriage which he does 
not get out very often. We said yes, and he stopped 
for Miss Hannah Upham and took her with us. 
She sat on the back seat with me and we rode clear 
to Farmington and kept up a brisk conversation all 
the way. She told us how she became lady princi- 
pal of the Ontario Female Seminary in 1830. She 
was still telling us about it when we got back home. 

December 23. — We have had a Christmas tree 
and many other attractions in Seminary chapel. 



i859] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 115 

The day scholars and townspeople were permitted to 
participate and we had a post office and received let- 
ters from our friends. Mr. E. M. Morse wrote me 
a fictitious one, claiming to be written from the 
north pole ten years hence. I will copy it in my 
journal for I may lose the letter. I had some gifts 
on the Christmas tree and gave some. I presented 
my teacher, Mr. Chubbuck, with two large hem- 
stitched handkerchiefs with his initials embroidered 
in a corner of each. As he is favored with the 
euphonious name of Frank Emery Robinson Chub- 
buck it was a work of art to make his initials look 
beautiful. I inclosed a stanza in rhyme: 

Amid the changing scenes of life 

If any storm should rise. 
May you ever have a handkerchief 

To wipe your weeping eyes. 

Here is Mr. Morse's letter : 

'* North Pole, 10 January 1869. 
" Miss Carrie Richards, 

" My Dear Young Friend. — It is very cold here 
and the pole is covered with ice. I climbed it yester- 
day to take an observation and arrange our flag, the 
Stars and Stripes, which I hoisted immediately on my 
arrival here, ten years ago. I thought I should freeze 
and the pole was so slippery that I was in great 
danger of coming down faster than was comfortable. 
Although this pole has been used for more than 6,000 
years it is still as good as new. The works of the 
Great Architect do not wear out. It is now ten years 



ii6 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1859 

since 1 have seen you and my other two Christian 
Graces and I have no doubt of your present position 
among the most briUiant, noble and excellent women 
in all America. I always knew and recognized your 
great abilities. Nature was very generous to you all 
and you were enjoying fine advantages at the time 
I last knew you. I thought your residence with your 
Grandparents an admirable school for you^ and you 
and your sister were most evidently the best joy of 
their old age. You certainly owe much to them. At 
the time that I left my three Christian Graces, Mrs. 
Grundy was sometimes malicious enough to say that 
they were injuring themselves by flirting. 1 always 
told the old lady that I had the utmost confidence in 
the judgment and discretion of my pupils and that 
they would be very careful and prudent in all their 
conduct. I confessed that flirting was wrong and 
very injurious to any one who was guilty of it, but 
I was very sure that you were not. I could not believe 
that you would disappoint us all and become only 
ordinary women, but that you would become the most 
exalted characters, scorning all things unwortliy of 
ladies and Christians and I was right and Mrs. Grundy 
was wrong. When the ice around the pole thaws out 
I shall make a flying visit to Canandaigua. I send 
you a tame polar bear for a playfellow. This letter 
will be conveyed to you by Esquimaux express. — 
Most truly yours, E. M. Morse." 



I think some one must have shown some verses 
that we girls wrote, to Mrs. Grundy and made her 
think that our minds were more upon the young 
men than they were upon our studies, but if people 
knew how much time we spent on Paley's '' Evi- 



i859] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 117 

dences of Christianity " and Butler's Analogy and 
Kames' Elements of Criticism and Ty tier's Ancient 
History and Olmstead's Mathematical Astronomy 
and our French and Latin and arithmetic and alge- 
bra and geometry and trigonometry and bookkeep- 
ing, they would know we had very little time to 
think of the masculine gender. 



i86o 

New Year's Day. — We felt quite grown up to-day 
and not a little scared when we saw Mr. Morse and 
Mr. Wells and Mr. Mason and Mr. Chubbuck all 
coming in together to make a New Year's call. 
They made a tour of the town. We did not feel 
so flustrated when Will Schley and Horace Finley 
came in later. Mr. Oliver Phelps, Jr., came to call 
upon Grandmother. Grandfather made a few calls, 
too. 

January 5. — Abbie Clark and I went up to see 
Miss Emma Morse because it is her birthday. We 
call her sweet Miss Emma and we think Mr. Man- 
ning Wells does, too. We went to William Wirt 
Howe's lecture in Bemis Hall this evening. He is 
a very smart young man. 

Anna wanted to walk down a little ways with the 
girls after school so she crouched down between 
Helen Coy and Hattie Paddock and walked past the 
house. Grandmother always sits in the front win- 
dow, so when Anna came in she asked her if she 
had to stay after school and Anna gave her an 
evasive answer. It reminds me of a story I read, 
of a lady who told the servant girl if any one called 
to give an evasive answer as she did not wish to 

118 



i86o] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 119 

receive calls that day. By and by the door bell 
rang and the servant went to the door. When she 
came back the lady asked her how she dismissed the 
visitor. She said, " Shure ye towld me to give an 
evasive answer, so when the man asked if the lady 
of the house was at home I said, ' Faith ! is your 
grandmother a monkey ! ' " We never say anything 
like that to our '' dear little lady," but we just change 
the subject and divert the conversation into a more 
agreeable channel. To-day some one came to see 
Grandmother when we were gone and told her that 
Anna and some others ran away from school. 
Grandmother told Anna she hoped she would never 
let any one bring her such a report again, x^nna 
said she would not, if she could possibly help it! 
I wonder who it was. Some one who believes in 
the text, '' Look not every man on his own things, 
but every man also on the things of others." 
Grandfather told us to-night that we ought to be 
very careful what we do as we are making history 
every day. Anna says she shall try not to have hers 
as dry as some that she had to learn at school to-day. 

February 9. — Dear Miss Mary Howell was mar- 
ried to-day to Mr. Worthington, of Cincinnati. 

February 28. — Grandfather asked me to read 
Abraham Lincoln's speech aloud which he delivered 
in Cooper Institute, New York, last evening, under 
the auspices of the Republican Club. He was 



I20 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [i860 

escorted to the platform by David Dudley Field and 
introduced by William Cullen Bryant. The Nczu 
York Times called him *' a noted political exhorter 
and Prairie orator." It was a thrilling talk and 
must have stirred men's souls. 

April I. — Aunt Ann was over to see us yesterday 
and she said she made a visit the day before out at 
Mrs. William Gorham's. Mrs. Phelps and Miss 
Eliza Chapin also went and they enjoyed talking- 
over old times when they were young. Maggie 
Gorham is going to be married on the 25th to Mr. 
Benedict of New York. She always said she would 
not marry a farmer and would not live in a cobble- 
stone house and now she is going to do both, for 
Mr. Benedict has bought the farm near theirs and 
it has a cobblestone house. We have always 
thought her one of the jolliest and prettiest of the 
older set of young ladies. 

June. — ^James writes that he has seen the Prince 
of Wales in New York. He was up on the roof of 
the Continental Fire Insurance building, out on the 
cornice, and looked down on the procession. After- 
wards there was a reception for the Prince at the 
University Law School and James saw him close by. 
He says he has a very pleasant youthful face. 
There was a ball given for him one evening in the 
Academy of Music and there were 3,000 present. 
The ladies who danced with him will never forget 



i86o] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 121 

it. They say that he enters into every diversion 
which is offered to him with the greatest tact and 
good nature, and when he visited Mount Vernon he 
showed great reverence for the memory of George 
Washington. He attended a Hterary entertainment 
in Boston, where Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, 
Thoreau, and other Americans of distinction were 
presented to him. He will always be a favorite in 
America. 

June. — Mrs. Annie Granger asked Anna and me 
to come over to her house and see her baby. We 
were very eager to go and wanted to hold it and 
carry it around the room. She was willing but 
asked us if we had any pins on us anywhere. She 
said she had the nurse sew the baby's clothes on 
every morning so that if she cried she would know 
whether it was pains or pins. We said we had no 
pins on us, so we stayed quite a while and held little 
Miss Hattie to our heart's content. She is named 
for her aunt, Hattie Granger. Anna says she thinks 
Miss Martha Morse will give medals to her and 
Mary Daggett for being the most meddlesome girls 
in school, judging from the number of times she 
has spoken to them to-day. Anna is getting to be a 
regular punster, although I told her that Blair's 
Rhetoric says that punning is not the highest kind 
of wit. Mr. Morse met us coming from school in 
the rain and said it would not hurt us as we were 
neither sugar nor salt. Anna said, " No, but we 



122 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [i860 

are 'lasses." Grandmother has been giving us sul- 
phur and molasses for the purification of the blood 
and we have to take it three mornings and then skip 
three mornings. This morning Anna commenced 
going through some sort of gymnastics and Grand- 
mother asked her what she was doing, and she said 
it was her first morning to skip. 

Abbie Clark had a large tea-party this afternoon 
and evening — Seminary girls and a few Academy 
boys. We had a fine supper and then played games. 
Abbie gave us one which is a test of memory and we 
tried to learn it from her but she was the only one 
who could complete it. I can write it down, but 
not say it : 

A good fat hen. 

Two ducks and a good fat hen. 

Three plump partridges, two ducks and a good 
fat hen. 

Four squawking wild geese, three plump par- 
tridges, etc. 

Five hundred Limerick oysters. 

Six pairs of Don Alfonso's tweezers. 

Seven hundred rank and file Macedonian horse- 
men drawn up in line of battle. 

Eight cages of heliogabalus sparrow kites. 

Nine sympathetical, epithetical, categorical propo- 
sitions. 

Ten tentapherical tubes. 

Eleven flat bottom fly boats sailing between Mada- 
gascar and Mount Palermo. 



i86o] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 123 

Twelve European dancing masters, sent to teach 
the Egyptian mummies how to dance, against Her- 
cules' wedding day. 

Abbie says it was easier to learn than the multi- 
plication table. They wanted some of us to recite 
and Abbie Clark gave us Lowell's poem, " John P. 
Robinson, he, says the world'U go right if he only 
says Gee!" I gave another of Lowell's poems, 
'' The Courtin'." Julia Phelps had her guitar with 
her by request and played and sang for us very 
sweetly. Fred Harrington went home with her and 
Theodore Barnum with me. 

Sunday. — Frankie Richardson asked me to go 
with her to teach a class in the colored Sunday 
School on Chapel Street this afternoon. I asked 
Grandmother if I could go and she said she never 
noticed that I was particularly interested in the col- 
ored race and she said she thought I only wanted an 
excuse to get out for a walk Sunday afternoon. 
However, she said I could go just this once. When 
we got up as far as the Academy, Mr. Noah T. 
Clarke's brother, who is one of the teachers, came 
out and Frank said he led the singing at the Sunday 
School and she said she would give me an introduc- 
tion to him, so he walked up with us and home 
again. Grandmother said that w^hen she saw him 
opening the gate for me, she understood my zeal in 
missionary work. " The dear little lady," as we 
often call her, has always been noted for her keen 



124 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [i860 

discernment and wonderful sagacity and loses none 
of it as she advances in years. Some one asked 
Anna the other day if her Grandmother retained 
all her faculties and Anna said, " Yes, indeed, to an 
alarming degree." Grandmother knows that we 
think she is a perfect angel even if she does seem 
rather strict sometimes. Whether we are 7 or 
17 we are children to her just the same, and the 
Bible says, '' Children obey your parents in the 
Lord for this is right." We are glad that we never 
will seem old to her. I had the same company home 
from church in the evening. His home is in 
Naples. 

Monday. — This morning the cook went to early 
mass and Anna told Grandmother she would bake 
the pancakes for breakfast if she would let her put 
on gloves. She would not let her, so Hannah baked 
the cakes. I was invited to Mary Paul's to supper 
to-night and drank the first cup of tea I ever drank 
in my life. I had a very nice time and Johnnie Paul 
came home with me. 

Imogen Power and I went down together Friday 
afternoon to buy me a Meteorology. We are study- 
ing that and Watts on the Mind, instead of 
Philosophy. 

Tuesday. — I went with Fanny Gaylord to see 
Mrs. Callister at the hotel to-night. She is so in- 




The Old Canandaisua Academy 



i86o] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 125 

terested in all that we tell her, just like " one of the 
girls." 

I was laughing to-day when I came in from the 
street and Grandmother asked me what amused me 
so. I told her that I met Mr. and Mrs. Putnam 
on the street and she looked so immense and he so 
minute I couldn't help laughing at the contrast. 
Grandmother said that size was not everything, and 
then she quoted Cowper's verse : 

*' Were I so tall to reach the skies or grasp the ocean 
in a span, 
I must be measured by my soul, the mind is the 
stature of the man." 

I don't believe that helps Mr. Putnam out. 

Friday. — We went to Monthly Concert of prayer 
for Foreign Missions this evening. I told Grand- 
mother that I thought it was not very interesting. 
Judge Taylor read the Missionary Herald about the 
Madagascans and the Senegambians and the Terra 
del Fuegans and then Deacon Tyler prayed and they 
sang " From Greenland's Icy IMountains " and took 
up a collection and went home. She said she was 
afraid I did not listen attentively. I don't think 
I did strain every nerve. I believe Grandmother 
wall give her last cent to Missions if the Boards get 
into worse straits than they are now. 

In Latin class to-day Anna translated the phrase 
Deo Volente '' with violence," and Mr. Tyler, who 



126 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [i860 

always enjoys a joke, laughed so, we thought he 
would fall out of his chair. He evidently thought 
it w^as the best one he had heard lately. 

November 21. — Aunt Ann gave me a sewing bird 
to screw on to the table to hold my work instead of 
pinning it to my knee. Grandmother tells us when 
we sew or read not to get everything around us that 
we will want for the next two hours because it is 
not healthy to sit in one position so long. She 
wants us to get up and '' stir around." Anna does 
not need this advice as much as I do for she is 
always on what Miss Achert calls the " qui vive." I 
am trying to make a sofa pillow out of little pieces 
of silk. Aunt Ann taught me how. You have 
to cut pieces of paper into octagonal shape and 
cover them with silk and then sew them together, 
over and over. They are beautiful, with bright 
colors, when they are done. There was a hop at 
the hotel last night and some of the girls went and 
had an elegant time. Mr. Hiram Metcalf came here 
this morning to have Grandmother sign some papers. 
He always looks very dignified, and Anna and I call 
him '' the deed man." We tried to hear what he 
said to Grandmother after she signed her name 
but we only heard something about " fear or com- 
pulsion " and Grandmother said " yes." It seems 
very mysterious. Grandfather took us down street 
to-day to see the new Star Building. It was the 
town house and he bought it and got Mr. Warren 



i86o] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 127 

Stoddard of Hopewell to superintend cutting it in 
two and moving the parts separately to Coach 
Street. When it was completed the shout went up 
from the crowd, " Hurrah for Thomas Beals, the 
preserver of the old Court House." No one but 
Grandfather thought it could be done. 

December. — I went with the girls to the lake to 
skate this afternoon. Mr. Johnson, the colored 
barber, is the best skater in town. He can skate 
forwards and backwards and cut all sorts of curli- 
cues, although he is such a heavy man. He is going 
to Liberia and there his skates won't do him any 
good. I wish he would give them to me and also 
his skill to use them. Some one asked me to sit 
down after I got home and I said I preferred to 
stand, as I had been sitting down all the afternoon ! 
Gus Coleman took a load of us sleighriding this 
evening. Of course he had Clara Willson sit on the 
front seat wnth him and help him drive. 

Thursday. — We had a special meeting of our 
society this evening at Mary Wheeler's and invited 
the gentlemen and had charades and general good 
time. Mr. Gillette and Horace Finley made a great 
deal of fun for us. We initiated Mr. Gillette into 
the Dorcas Society, which consists in seating the 
candidate in a chair and propounding some very 
solemn questions and then in token of desire to join 
the society, you ask him to open his mouth very wide 



128 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [i860 

for a piece of cake which you swallow, yourself, 
instead! Very disappointing to the new member! 
We went to a concert at the Seminary this even- 
ing. Miss Mollie Bull sang *' Coming Through the 
Rye " and Miss Lizzie Bull sang " Annie Laurie " 
and '' Auld Lang Syne." Jennie Lind, herself, 
could not have done better. 

December 15. — Alice Jewett, Emma Wheeler and 
Anna are in Mrs. Worthington's Sunday School 
class and as they have recently united with the 
church, she thought they should begin practical 
Christian work by distributing tracts among the 
neglected classes. So this afternoon they ran away 
from school to begin the good work. It was so 
bright and pleasant, they thought a walk to the lake 
would be enjoyable and they could find a welcome in 
some humble home. The girls wanted Anna to be 
the leader, but she would only promise that if some- 
thing pious came into her mind, she would say it. 
They knocked at a door and were met by a smiling 
mother of twelve children and asked to come in. 
They sat down feeling somewhat embarrassed, but 
spying a photograph album on the table, they be- 
came much interested, while the children explained 
the pictures. Finally Anna felt that it was time 
to do something, so when no one was looking, she 
slipped under one of the books on the table, three 
tracts entitled '' Consolation for the Bereaved," 
" Systematic Benevolence " and '' The Social Evils 



i86o] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 129 

of dancing, card playing and theater-going." Then 
they said goodbye to their new friends and started 
on. They decided not to do any more pastoral 
work until another day, but enjoyed the outing very 
much. 

Christmas. — We all went to Aunt Mary Carr's 
to dinner excepting Grandmother, and in the evening 
we went to see some tableaux at Dr. Cook's and Dr. 
Chapin's at the asylum. We were very much 
pleased with the entertainment. Between the acts 
Mr. del Pratt, one of the patients, said every time, 
" What next ! " which made every one laugh. 

Grandfather was requested to add his picture to 
the gallery of portraits of eminent men for the 
Court Room, so he has had it painted. An artist 
by the name of Green, who lives in town, has fin- 
ished it after numerous sittings and brought it up 
for our approval. We like it but we do not think 
it is as good looking as he is. No one could really 
satisfy us probably, so we may as well try to be 
suited. 

I asked Grandmother if Mr. Clarke could take 
Sunday night supper with us and she said she was 
afraid he did not know the catechism. I asked him 
Friday night and he said he would learn it on Satur- 
day so that he could answer every third question any 
way. So he did and got along very well. I think 
he deserved a pretty good supper. 



i86i 

March 4, 1861. — President Lincoln was inau- 
gurated to-day. 

March 5. — I read the inaugural address aloud to 
Grandfather this evening. He dwelt with such 
pathos upon the duty that all, both North and South, 
owe to the Union, it does not seem as though there 
could be war! 

April. — We seem to have come to a sad, sad time. 
The Bible says, ** A man's worst foes are those of 
his own household." The whole United States has 
been like one great household for many years. 
*' United we stand, divided we fall ! " has been our 
watchword, but some who should have been its best 
friends have proven false and broken the bond. 
Men are taking sides, some for the North, some for 
the South. Hot words and fierce looks have fol- 
lowed, and there has been a storm in the air for a 
long time. 

Api'il 15. — The storm has broken upon us. The 
Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, just off the 
coast of South Carolina, and forced her on April 
14 to haul down the flag and surrender. President 

130 



i86i] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 131 

Lincoln has issued a call for 75,000 men and many 
are volunteering to go all around us. How strange 
and awful it seems. 

May, 1 86 1. — Many of the young men are going 
from Canandaigua and all the neighboring towns. 
It seems very patriotic and grand when they are 
singing, '' It is sweet, Oh, 'tis sweet, for one's coun- 
try to die," and we hear the martial music and see 
the flags flying and see the recruiting tents on the 
square and meet men in uniform at every turn and 
see train loads of the boys in blue going to the front, 
but it will not seem so grand if we hear they are dead 
on the battlefield, far from home. A lot of us girls 
went down to the train and took flowers to the sol- 
diers as they were passing through and they cut 
buttons from their coats and gave to us as souvenirs. 
We have flags on our paper and envelopes, and have 
all our stationery bordered with red, white and blue. 
We wear little flag pins for badges and tie our hair 
with red, white and blue ribbon and have pins and 
earrings made of the buttons the soldiers gave us. 
We are going to sew for them in our society and 
get the garments all cut from the older ladies' 
society. They work every day in one of the rooms 
of the court house and cut out garments and make 
them and scrape lint and roll up bandages. They 
say they will provide us with all the garments we 
will make. We are going to write notes and enclose 
them in the garments to cheer up the soldier boys. 



132 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1861 

It does not seem now as though I could give up any 
one who belonged to me. The girls in our society 
say that if any of the members do send a soldier to 
the war they shall have a flag bed quilt, made by the 
society, and have the girls' names on the stars. 

May 20. — I recited '*' Scott and the A^eteran " to- 
day at school, and Mary Field recited, " To Drum 
Beat and Heart Beat a Soldier ^Marches By "; Anna 
recited '' The \^irginia ]\Iother." Every one learns 
war poems now-a-days. There was a patriotic 
rally in Bemis Hall last night and a quartette sang, 
** The Sword of Bunker Hill " and " Dixie " and 
*' John Brown's Body Lies a ^Mouldering in the 
Grave," and many other patriotic songs. We have 
one \\'est Point cadet, Albert M. IMurray, who is 
in the thick of the tight, and Charles S. Coy repre- 
sents Canandaigua in the navy. 

June, 1 86 1. — At the anniversary exercises. Rev. 
Samuel ]\L Hopkins of Auburn gave the address. I 
have graduated from Ontario Female Seminary 
after a five years course and had the honor of re- 
ceiving a diploma from the courtly hands of Gen- 
eral John A. Granger. I am going to have it 
framed and handed down to my grandchildren as a 
memento, not exactly of sleepless nights and mid- 
night vigils, but of rising betimes, at what Anna 
calls the crack of dawn. She likes that expression 
better than daybreak. I heard her reciting in the 




-M'-' 



pj^-^^ ^ 



-^.S 




i86i] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 133 

back chaniber one morning- about 4 o'clock and lis- 
tened at the door. She was saying in the most 
nonchalant manner : " Science and literature in 
England were fast losing all traces of originality, 
invention was discouraged, research unvalued and 
the examination of nature proscribed. It seemed to 
be generally supposed that the treasure accumulated 
in the preceding ages was quite sufficient for all 
national purposes and that the only duty which 
authors had to perform was to reproduce what had 
thus been accumulated, adorned with all the graces 
of polished style. Tameness and monotony nat- 
urally result from a slavish adherence to all arbi- 
trary rules and every branch of literature felt this 
blighting influence. History, perhaps, was in some 
degree an exception, for Hume, Robertson and more 
especially Gibbon, exhibited a spirit of original in- 
vestigation which found no parallel among their 
contemporaries." I looked in and asked her where 
her book was, and she said she left it down stairs. 
She has " got it " all right, I am sure. We helped 
decorate the seminary chapel for two days. Our 
motto was, " Still achieving, still pursuing." Miss 
Guernsey made most of the letters and Mr. Chub- 
buck put them up and he hung all the paintings. It 
was a very warm week. General Granger had to 
use his palm leaf fan all the time, as well as the 
rest of us. There were six in our class, Mary Field, 
Lucy Petherick, Kate Lilly, Sarah Clay, Abby Scott 
and myself. Abbie Clark would have been in the 



134 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1861 

class, but she went to Pittsfield, Mass., instead. 
General Granger said to each one of us, ** It gives me 
great pleasure to present you with this diploma," 
and when he gave Miss Scott hers, as she is from 
Alabama, he said he wished it might be as a flag of 
truce between the North and the South, and this 
sentiment was loudly cheered. General Granger 
looked so handsome with his black dress suit and 
ruffled shirt front and all the natural grace which 
belongs to him. The sheepskin has a picture of the 
Seminary on it and this inscription : '' The Trus- 
tees and Faculty of the Ontario Female Seminary 

hereby certify that has completed the 

course of study prescribed in this Institution, main- 
tained the requisite scholarship and commendable 
deportment and is therefore admitted to the gradu- 
ating honors of this Institution. President of 
Board, John A. Granger; Benjamin F. Richards, 
Edward G. Tyler, Principals." Mr. Morse wrote 
something for the paper: 



*' To the Editor of the Repository : 

" Dear Sir — June roses, etc., make our loveliest of 
villages a paradise this week. The constellations are 
all glorious and the stars of earth far outshine those 
of the heavens. The lake shore, ' Lovers' Lane,* 
* Glen Kitty ' and the ' Points ' are full of romance and 
romancers. The yellow moon and the blue waters 
and the dark green shores and the petrified Indians, 
whispering stony words at the foot of Genundewah, 
and Squaw Island sitting on the waves, like an en- 



i86i] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 135 

chanted grove, and ' Whalesback ' all humped up in 
the East and ' Devil's Lookout ' rising over all, made 
the * Sleeping Beauty ' a silver sea of witchery and 
love; and in the cottages and palaces we ate the 
ambrosia and drank the nectar of the sweet goddesses 
of this new and golden age. 

" I may as well say to you, Mr. Editor, that the 
Ontario Eemale Seminary closed yesterday and 

* Yours truly ' was present at the commencement. Be- 
ing a bachelor 1 shall plead guilty and appeal to tlie 
mercy of the Court, if indicted for undue prejudice 
in favor of the charming young orators. After the 
report of the Examining Committee, in which the 
scholarship of the young ladies w^as not too highly 
praised, came the Latin Salutatory by Miss Clay, a 
most beautiful and elegant production (that sentence, 
sir, applies to both salutatory and salutatorian). The 

* Shadows We Cast,' by Miss Field, carried us far into 
the beautiful fields of nature and art and we saw 
the dark, or the brilliant shades, wdiich our lives will 
cast, upon society and history. Then ' Tongues in 
Trees ' began to whisper most bewitchingly, and 
' Books in the Running Brooks ' were opened, and 
' Sermons in Stones ' were preached by Miss Richards, 
and this old bachelor thought if all trees would talk 
so well, and every brook would babble so musically, 
and each precious stone would exhort so brilliantly, 
as they were made to do by the ' enchantress,' angels 
and dreams would henceforth be of little consequence ; 
and whether the orator should be called * Tree of 
Beauty,' ' Minnehaha ' or the ' Kohinoor ' is a ' vexata 
questio.' 

" In the evening Mr. Flardick, ' our own,' whose 
hand never touches the piano without making 
delicious music, and Misses Daggett and Wilson, also 



136 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1861 

' our own,' and the musical pupils of the Institution, 
gave a concert. ' The Young Volunteer ' was impera- 
tively demanded, and this for the third time during the 
anniversary exercises, and was sung amid thunders 
of applause, ' Star of the South,' Miss Stella Scott, 
shining meanwhile in all her radiant beauty. May her 
glorious light soon rest on a Union that shall never 
more be broken. — Soberly yours, 

A Very Old Bachelor." 



June, 1 86 1. — There w^as a patriotic rally this 
afternoon on the campus of Canandaigua Academy 
and we Seminary girls went. They raised a Hag 
on the Academy building. General Granger pre- 
sided, Dr. Coleman led the choir and they sang 
" The Star Spangled Banner." Mr. Noah T. 
Clarke made a stirring speech and Mr. Gideon 
Granger, James C. Smith and K. M. Morse fol- 
lowed. Canandaigua has already raised over 
$7,000 for the war. Capt. Barry drills the Acad- 
emy boys in military tactics on the campus every 
day. Men are constantly enlisting. Lester P. 
Thompson, son of '' Father Thompson," among the 
others. 

A young man asked Anna to take a drive to-day, 
but Grandmother was not willing at first to let her 
go. She finally gave her consent, after Anna's plea 
that he was so young and his horse w^as so gentle. 
Just as they were ready to start, T heard Anna run 
upstairs and I heard him say, " What an Anna!" 
I asked her afterwards what she went for and she 



i86i] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 137 

said she renienibered lliat she had left the soap in 
the water. 

jii^n^-^ — Dr. Daggett's war sermon from the 146th 
Psahn was w^onderful. 

December i.— Dr. Carr is dead. He had a stroke 
of paralysis two weeks ago and for several days he 
has been unconscious. The choir of our church, 
of which he was leader for so long, and some of the 
young people came and stood around his bed and 
sang, " Jesus, Lover of My Soul." They did not 
know whether he was conscious or not, but they 
thought so because the tears ran down his cheeks 
from his closed eyelids, though he could not speak 
or move. The funeral was from the church and 
Dr. Daggett's text was, *' The Beloved Physician." 



1 862 

January 26. — We went to the Baptist Church this 
evening to hear Rev. A. H. Lung preach his last 
sermon before going into the army. 

February 17. — Glorious news from the war to- 
day. Fort Donelson is taken with 1,500 rebels. 
The right and the North wall surely triumph! 

February 21. — Our society met at Fanny Palmer's 
this afternoon. I went but did not stay to tea as 
w^e were going to Madame Anna Bishop's concert 
in the evening. The concert w^as very, very good. 
Her voice has great scope and she was dressed in 
the latest stage costume, but it took so much mate- 
rial for her skirt that there was hardly any left for 
the waist. 

Washington's Birthday. — Patriotic services were 
held in the Congregational Church this morning. 
Madame Anna Bishop sang, and National songs 
were sung. Hon. James C. Smith read Washing- 
ton's Farewell Address. In the afternoon a party 
of twenty-two, young and old, took a ride in the 
Seminary boat and w^ent to Mr. Paton's on the lake 
shore road. We carried flags and made it a patri- 

138 




1 


1 


m^ 




k 


1 



i862] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 139 

otic occasion. I sat next to Spencer F. Lincoln, 
a young man from Naples who is studying law in 
Mr. Henry Chesebro's office. I never met him be- 
fore but he told me he had made up his mind to 
go to the war. It is wonderful that young men 
who have brilliant prospects before them at home, 
will offer themselves upon the altar of their coun- 
try. I have some new patriotic stationery. There 
is a picture of the flag on the envelope and under- 
neath, ''If any one attempts to haul down the 
American flag shoot him on the spot. — John A. 
Dix." 



Sunday, February 23. — Everybody came out to 
church this morning, expecting to hear Madame 
Anna Bishop sing. She was not there, and an 
" agent " made a " statement." The audience did 
not appear particularly edified. 

March 4. — John B. Gough lectured in Bemis Hall 
last night and was entertained by Governor Clark. 
I told Grandfather that I had an invitation to the 
lecture and he asked me who from. I told him 
from Mr. Noah T. Clarke's brother. He did not 
make the least objection and I was awfully glad, 
because he has asked me to the whole course. Wen- 
dell Phillips and Horace Greeley, E. H. Chapin and 
John G. Saxe and Bayard Taylor are expected. 
John B. Cough's lecture was fine. He can make 



HO VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1862 

an audience laugh as much by wagging his coat tails 
as some men can by talking an hour. 

March 26. — I have been up at Laura Chapin's 
from 10 o'clock in the morning until 10 at night, fin- 
ishing Jennie Howell's bed quilt, as she is to be 
married very soon. Almost all of the girls were 
there. We finished it at 8 p. m. and when we took 
it off the frames we gave three cheers. Some of 
the youth of the village came up to inspect our han- 
diwork and see us home. Before we went Julia 
Phelps sang and played on the guitar and Captain 
Barry also sang and we all sang together, " O ! Co- 
lumbia, the gem of the ocean, three cheers for the 
red, white and blue." 

June 19. — Our cousin, Ann Eliza Field, was mar- 
ried to-day to George B. Bates at her home on Gib- 
son Street. We went and had an elegant time. 
Charlie Wheeler made great fun and threw the final 
shower of rice as they drove away. 

June. — There was great excitement in prayer 
meeting last night, it seemed to Abbie Clark, Mary 
Field and me on the back seat where we always sit. 
Several people have asked us why we sit away back 
there by old Mrs. Kinney, but we tell them that she 
sits on the other side of the stove from us and we 
like tlic seal, because we have occupied it so long. 
I presume we would see less and hear more if we 



i862] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 141 

sat in front. To-night just after Mr. Walter Hub- 
bell had made one of his most beautiful prayers and 
Mr. Cyrus Dixon was praying, a big June bug came 
zipping into the room and snapped against the wall 
and the lights and barely escaped several bald heads. 
Anna kept dodging around in a most startling man- 
ner and I expected every moment to see her walk 
out and take Emma Wheeler with her, for if she 
is afraid of anything more than dogs it is June bugs. 
At this crisis the bug flew out and a cat stealthily 
walked in. We knew that dear Mrs. Taylor was 
always unpleasantly affected by the sight of cats 
and we didn't know what would happen if the cat 
should go near her. The cat very innocently 
ascended the steps to the desk and as Judge and Mrs. 
Taylor always sit on the front seat, she couldn't 
help observing the ambitious animal as it started to 
assist Dr. Daggett in conducting the meeting. The 
result was that Mrs. Taylor just managed to reach 
the outside door before fainting away. We were 
glad when the benediction was pronounced. 

jn^c. — Anna and I had a serenade last night from 
the Academy Glee Club, I think, as their voices 
sounded familiar. We were awakened by the 
music, about 11 P. M., quite suddenly and I thought 
I would step across the hall to the front chamber for 
a match to light the candle. I was only half awake, 
however, and lost my bearings and stepped off the 
stairs and rolled or slid to the bottom. The stairs 



142 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1862 

are winding, so I must have performed two or three 
revolutions before I reached my destination. I 
jumped up and ran back and found Anna sitting up 
in bed, laughing. She asked me where I had been 
and said if I had only told her where I was going 
she would have gone for me. We decided not to 
strike a light, but just listen to the singing. Anna 
said she was glad that the leading tenor did not 
know how quickly I '' tumbled " to the words of 
his song, '* O come my love and be my own, nor 
longer let me dwell alone," for she thought he would 
be too much flattered. Grandfather came into the 
hall and asked if any bones were broken and if he 
should send for a doctor. We told him we guessed 
not, we thought we would be all right in the morn- 
ing. He thought it was Anna who fell down stairs, 
as he is never looking for such exploits in me. We 
girls received some verses from the Academy boys, 
written by Greig Mulligan, under the assumed name 
of Simon Snooks. The subject was, '' The Poor 
Unfortunate Academy Boys." We have answered 
them and now I fear Mrs. Grundy will see them 
and imagine something serious is going on. But 
she is mistaken and will find, at the end of the ses- 
sion, our hearts are still in our own possession. 

When we were down at Sucker Brook the other 
afternoon we were watching the water and one of 
the girls said, *' How nice it would be if our lives 
could run along as smoothly as this stream." I said 
I thouo^ht it would be too monotonous. Laura 



i862] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 143 

Chapin said she supposed I would rather have an 
*' eddy " in mine. 

We went to the examination at the Academy to- 
day and to the gymnasium exercises afterwards. 
Mr, Noah T. Clarke's brother leads them and they 
do some great feats with their rings and swings and 
weights and ladders. We girls can do a few in 
the bowling alley at the Seminary. 

Jttne. — I visited Eureka LawTence in Syracuse 
and we attended commencement at Hamilton Col- 
lege, Clinton, and saw there, James Tunnicliff and 
Stewart Ellsworth of Penn Yan. I also saw Darius 
Sackett there among the students and also became 
acquainted with a very interesting young man from 
Syracuse, with the classic name of Horace Publius 
Virgilius Bogue. Both of these young men are 
studying for the ministry. I also saw Henry P. 
Cook, who used to be one of the Academy boys, and 
Morris Brown, of Penn Yan. They talk of leaving 
college and going to the war and so does Darius 
Sackett. 

July, 1862. — The President has called for 300,000 
more brave men to fill up the ranks of the fallen. 
We hear every day of more friends and acquaint- 
ances who have volunteered to go. 

August 20. — The 126th Regiment, just organized, 
was mustered into service at Camp Swift, Geneva. 



144 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1862 

Those that I know who belong to it are Colonel 
E. S. Sherrill, Lieutenant Colonel James M. Bull, 
Captain Charles A. Richardson, Captain Charles M. 
Wheeler, Captain Ten Eyck Munson, Captain Orin 
G. Herendeen, Surgeon Dr. Charles S. Hoyt, Hos- 
pital Steward Henry T. Antes, First Lieutenant 
Charles Gage, Second Lieutenant Spencer F. Lin- 
coln, First Sergeant Morris Brown, Corporal Hol- 
lister N. Grimes, Privates Darius Sackett, Henry 
Willson, Oliver Castle, William Lamport. 

Dr. Hoyt wrote home : " God bless the dear 
ones we leave behind; and while you try to perform 
the duties you owe to each other, we will try to 
perform ours." 

We saw by the papers that the volunteers of the 
regiment before leaving camp at Geneva allotted 
over v$i 5,000 of their monthly pay to their families 
and friends at home. One soldier sent this telegram 
to his wife, as the regiment started for the front: 
*' God l)less you. Hail Columbia. Kiss the baby. 
Write soon." A volume in ten words. 

All (just. — The New A^ork State S. S. convention 
is convened here and the meetings are most interest- 
ing. They were held in our church and lasted three 
da}s. A Mr. Llart, from New York, led the sing- 
ing and Mr. Ralph \A^ells was Moderator. ]\Ir. 
Noah T. Clarke was in his clement all through the 
meetings. Mr. Pardee gave some fine blackboard 
exercises. During the last afternoon Mr. Tousley 



i862] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 145 

was wheeled into the church, in his invahd chair, 
and said a few words, which thrilled every one. 
So much tenderness, mingled with his old time en- 
thusiasm and love for the cause. It is the last time 
probably that his voice will ever be heard in public. 
They closed the grand meeting with the hymn be- 



'' Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love." 

In returning thanks to the people of Canandaigua 
for their generous entertainment, Mr. Ralph Wells 
facetiously said that the cost of the convention must 
mean something to Canandaigua people, for the 
cook in one home was heard to say, '' These re- 
ligiouses do eat awful ! " 

September 13. — Darius Sackett was wounded by 
a musket shot in the leg, at Maryland Heights, Va., 
and in consequence is discharged from the service. 

September. — Edgar A. Griswold of Naples is re- 
cruiting a company here for the 148th Regiment, of 
which he is captain. Hiram P. Brown, Henry S. 
Murray and Charles H. Paddock are officers in the 
company. Dr. Elnathan W. Simmons is surgeon. 

September 22. — I read aloud to Grandfather this 
evening the Emancipation Proclamation issued as 



146 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1862 

a war measure by President Lincoln, to take effect 
January i, liberating over three million slaves. He 
recommends to all thus set free, to labor faithfully 
for reasonable wages and to abstain from all vio- 
lence, unless in necessary self-defense, and he in- 
vokes upon this act '' the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

November 21. — This is my twentieth birthday. 
Anna wanted to write a poem for the occasion and 
this morning she handed me what she called '' An 
effort." She said she wrestled with it all night long 
and could not sleep and this was the result : 

" One hundred years from now, Carrie dear^ 
In all probability you'll not be here ; 
But we'll all be in the same boat, too, 
And there'll be no one left 
To say boo hoo ! " 

Grandfather gave me for a present a set of books 
called '' Irving's Catechisms on Ancient Greeks and 
Romans." They are four little books bound in 
leather, which were presented to our mother for a 
prize. It is thus inscribed on the front page, '' Miss 
Elizabeth Beals at a public examination of the Fe- 
male Boarding School in East Bloomfield, October 
15, T825, was judged to excel the school in Reading. 
In testimony of which she receives this Premium 
from her affectionate instructress, S. Adams." 

I cannot imagine Grandmother sending us away 



i862] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 147 

to boarding school, but I suppose she had so many 
children then, she could spare one or two as well as 
not. She says they sent Aunt Ann to Miss Wil- 
lard's school at Troy. I received a birthday letter 
from Mrs. Beaumont to-day. She wants to know 
how everything goes at the Seminary and if Anna 
still occupies the front seat in the school room most 
of the time. She says she supposes she is quite a 
sedate young lady now but she hopes there is a whole 
lot of the old Anna left. I think there is. 

December. — Hon. William H. Lamport went 
down to Virginia to see his son and found that he 
had just died in the hospital from measles and pneu- 
monia. Their only son, only eighteen years old ! 



1 863 

January. — Grandmother went to Aunt Mary 
Carr's to tea to-night, very much to our surprise, 
for she seldom goes anywhere. Anna said she was 
going to keep house exactly as Grandmother did, 
so after supper she took a little hot water in a basin 
on a tray and got the tea-towels and washed the 
silver and best china but she let the ivory handles 
on the knives and forks get wet, so I presume they 
will all turn black. Grandmother never lets her 
little nice things go out into the kitchen, so probably 
that is the reason that everything is forty years old 
and yet as good as new. She let us have the Young 
Ladies' Aid Society here to supper because I am 
President. She came into the parlor and looked 
at our basket of work, which the older ladies cut out 
for us to make for the soldiers. She had the supper 
table set the whole length of the dining room and 
let us preside at the table. Anna made the girls 
laugh so, they could hardly eat, although they said 
everything was splendid. They said they never ate 
better biscuit, preserves, or fruit cake and the coffee 
was delicious. After it was over, the " dear little 
lady " said she hoped we had a good time. After 
the girls were gone Grandmother wanted to look 
over the garments and see how much we had accom- 

148 



1863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AIVIERICA 149 

plished and if we had made them well. Mary l*leld 
made a pair of drawers with No. 90 thread. Slie 
said she wanted them to look fine and 1 am sure 
they did. Most of us wrote notes and put inside 
the garments for the soldiers in the hospitals. 

Sarah Gihson Howell has had an answer to her 
letter. His name is Foster — a Major. She ex- 
peets him to come and see her soon. 

All the girls wear newspaper bustles to school 
now and Anna's rattled to-day and Emma Wheeler 
heard it and said, ''What's the news, Anna?" 
They both laughed out loud and found that '' the 
latest news from the front " was that Miss Morse 
kept them both after school and they had to coi)y 
Dictionary for an hour. War prices are terrible. 
I paid $3.50 to-day for a hoop skirt. 

January 13. — P. T. Barnum delivered his lecture 
on " The Art of Money Getting " in Bemis Hall this 
evening for the benefit of the Ladies' Aid S(Kiety, 
which is working for the soldiers. We girls went 
and enjoyed it. 

February. — The members of our society sympa- 
thized with General McClellan when he was criti- 
cised by some and we wrote him the following letter : 

" Canandaigua, Feb. 13, 1S63. 
" Maj. Gen. Geo. McClellan : 

" Will you pardon any seeming impropriety in our 
addressing you, and attribute it to the impulsive love 



150 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1863 

and admiration of hearts which see in you, the bravest 
and noblest defender of our Union. We cannot resist 
the impulse to tell you, be our words ever so feeble, 
how our love and trust have followed you from Rich 
Mountain to Antietam, through all slanderous attacks 
of traitorous politicians and fanatical defamers — how 
we have admired, not less than your calm courage on 
the battlefield, your lo»fty scorn of those who remained 
at home in the base endeavor to strip from your brow^ 
the hard earned laurels placed there by a grateful 
country : to tell further, that in your forced retirement 
from battlefields of the Republic's peril, you have ' but 
changed your country's arms for more, — your coun- 
try's heart,' — and to assure you that so long as our 
country remains to us a sacred name and our flag 
a holy emblem, so long shall we cherish your memory 
as the defender and protector of both. We are an 
association whose object it is to aid, in the only way 
in which woman, alas! can aid our brothers in the 
field. Our sympathies are with them in the cause 
for which they have periled all — our hearts are 
with them in the prayer, that ere long their beloved 
commander may be restored to them, and that once 
more as of old he may lead them to victory in the 
sacred name of the Union and Constitution. 

*' With united prayers that the Father of all may 
have you and yours ever in His holy keeping, we 
remain your devoted partisans." 

Signed by a large number. 

The following in reply was addressed to the lady 
whose name was first signed to the above: 

" New York, Feb. 21, 1863. 
" Madam — I take great pleasure in acknowledging 
the receipt of the very kind letter of the 13th inst., 



i863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 151 

from yourself and your friends. Will you do me the 
favor to say to them how much I thank them for it, 
and that I am at a loss to express my gratitude for 
the pleasant and cheering terms in which it is couched. 
Such sentiments on the part of those whose brothers 
have served with me in the field are more grateful 
to me than anything else can be. I feel far more than 
rewarded by them for all I have tried to accomplish. 
— I am, Madam, with the most sincere respect and 
friendship, yours very truly^ (^ 

" Ge6. B. McClellan." 



May. — A number of the teachers and pupils of the 
Academy have enlisted for the war. Among them 
E. C Clarke, H. C. Kirk, A. T. Wilder, Norman K. 
Martin, T. C. Parkhurst, Mr. Gates. They have a 
tent on the square and are enlisting men in Canan- 
daigua and vicinity for the 4th N. Y. Heavy Ar- 
tillery. I received a letter from Mr. Noah T. 
Clarke's mother in Naples. She had already sent 
three sons, Bela, William and Joseph, to the war and 
she is very sad because her youngest has now en- 
listed. She says she feels as did Jacob of old when 
he said, '' I am bereaved of my children. Joseph 
is not and Simeon is not and now you will take 
Benjamin away." I have heard that she is a beau- 
tiful singer but she says she cannot sing any more 
until this cruel war is over. I wish that I could 
write something to comfort her but I feel as Mrs. 
Browning puts it: '' If you want a song for your 
Italy free, let none look at me." 



152 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1863 

Our society met at Fannie Pierce's this afternoon. 
Her mother is an invahd and never gets out at all, 
but she is very much interested in the soldiers and 
in all young people, and loves to have us come in 
and see her and we love to go. She enters into the 
plans of all of us young girls and has a personal 
interest in us. We had a very good time to-night 
and Laura Chapin was more full of fun than usual. 
Once there was silence for a minute or two and 
some one said, " awful pause." Laura said, '' I 
guess you would have awful paws if you worked as 
hard as I do." We were talking about how many 
of us girls would be entitled to flag bed quilts, and 
according to the rules, they said that, up to date, 
Abbie Clark and I were the only ones. The ex- 
planation is that Captain George N. Williams and 
Lieutenant E. C. Clarke are enlisted in their coun- 
try's service. Susie Daggett is Secretary and 
Treasurer of the Society and she reported that in 
one year's time we made in our society 133 pairs of 
drawers, 10 1 shirts, 4 pairs socks for soldiers, and 
54 garments for the families of soldiers. 

Abbie Clark and I had our ambrotypes taken to- 
day for two young braves who are going to the war. 
William H. Adams is also commissioned Captain 
and is going to the front. 

July 4. — The terrible battle of Gettysburg brings 
to Canandaigua sad news of our soldier boys of the 
126th Regiment. Colonel Sherrill was instantly 





'Abbie Clark and I 

had our ambrotypes taken to-day" 




\ 



"Mr. Noah T. Clarke's 
Brother and I" 



i863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 153 

killed, also Captains Wheeler and Herendeen, 
Henry Willson and Henry P. Cook. Captain Rich- 
ardson was wounded. 

July 26. — Charlie Wheeler was buried with mili- 
tary honors from the Congregational church to-day. 
Two companies of the 54th New York State Na- 
tional Guard attended the funeral, and the church 
was packed, galleries and all. It was the saddest 
funeral and the only one of a soldier that I ever 
attended. I hope it will be the last. He was killed 
at Gettysburg, July 3, by a sharpshooter's bullet. 
He was a very bright young man, graduate of Yale 
college and was practising law. He was captain of 
Company K, 126th N. Y. Volunteers. I have 
copied an extract from Mr. Morse's lecture, *' You 
and I " : " And who has forgotten that gifted 
youth, who fell on the memorable field of Gettys- 
burg? To win a noble name, to save a beloved 
country, he took his place beneath the dear old flag, 
and while cannon thundered and sabers clashed and 
the stars of the old Union shone above his head he 
went down in the shock of battle and left us deso- 
late, a name to love and a glory to endure. And as 
we solemnly know, as by the old charter of liberty 
we most sacredly swear, he was truly and faithfully 
and religiously 

Of all our friends the noblest, 
The choicest and the purest, 
The nearest and the dearest. 
In the field at Gettysburg. 



154 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1863 

Of all the heroes bravest, 
Of soul the brightest, whitest. 
Of all the warriors greatest, 
Shot dead at Gettysburg. 

And where the fight was thickest. 
And where the smoke was blackest, 
And where the fire was hottest. 

On the fields of Gettysburg, 
There flashed his steel the brightest. 
There blazed his eyes the fiercest, 
There flowed his blood the reddest 

On the field of Gettysburg. 

O wailing winds of heaven ! 
O weeping dew of evening! 
O music of the waters 

That flow at Gettysburg, 
Mourn tenderly the hero. 
The rare and glorious hero, 
The loved and peerless hero, 

Who died at Gettysburg. 

His turf shall be the greenest. 
His roses bloom the sweetest^ 
His willow droop the saddest 

Of all at Gettysburg. 
His memory live the freshest, 
His fame be cherished longest, 
Of all the holy warriors, 

Who fell at Gettysburg. 

These were patriots, these were our jewels. 
When shall we see their like again? And of every 
soldier who has fallen in this war his friends may 



i863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 155 

write just as lovingly as you and I may do of those 
to whom I pay my feeble tribute." 

August, 1863. — The U. S. Sanitary Commission 
has been organized. Canandaigua sent Dr. W. Fitch 
Cheney to Gettysburg with supplies for the sick and 
wounded and he took seven assistants with him. 
Home bounty was brought to the tents and put into 
the hands of the wounded soldiers. A blessed work. 

August 12. — Lucilla Field was married in our 
church to-day to Rev. S. W. Pratt. I always 
thought she was cut out for a minister's wife. 
Jennie Draper cried herself sick because Lucilla, 
her Sunday School teacher, is going away. 

October 8. — News came to-day of the death of 
Lieutenant Hiram Brown. He died of fever at 
Portsmouth, only little more than a year after he 
went away. 

November i. — The 4th New York Heavy Artil- 
lery is stationed at Fort Hamilton, N. Y. harbor. 
Uncle Edward has invited me down to New York 
to spend a month! Very opportune! Grandfather 
says that I can go and Miss Rosewarne is beginning 
a new dress for me to-day. 

November 6. — We were saddened to-day by news 
of the death of Augustus Torrey Wilder in the hos- 
pital at Fort Ethan Allen. 



156 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1863 

November 9. — No. 68 E. 19th Street, New York 
City. Grandfather and I came from Canandaigua 
yesterday. He is at Gramercy Park Hotel. We 
were met by a military escort of " one " at Albany 
and consequently came through more safely, I sup- 
pose. James met us at 42d Street Grand Central 
Station. He lives at Uncle Edward's; attends to 
all of his legal business and is his confidential clerk. 
I like it very much here. They are very stylish and 
grand but I don't mind that. Aunt Emily is re- 
served and dignified but very kind. People do not 
pour their tea or coffee into their saucers any more 
to cool it, but drink it from the cup, and you must 
mind and not leave your teaspoon in your cup. I 
notice everything and am very particular. Mr. 
Morris K. Jesup lives right across the street and I 
see him every day, as he is a friend of Uncle Ed- 
ward. Grandfather has gone back home and left 
me in charge of friends '' a la militaire '' and others. 

November 15. — " We" went out to Eort Hamil- 
ton to-day and are going to Blackwell's Island to- 
morrow and to many other places of interest down 
the Bay. Soldiers are everywhere and I feel quite 
important, walking around in company with blue 
coat and brass buttons — very becoming style of 
dress for men and the military salute at every turn 
is what one reads about. 

Sunday. — Went to Broadway Tabernacle to 
church to-day and heard Rev. Joseph P. Thompson 



i863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 157 

preach. Abbie Clark is visiting her sister, Mrs. 
Fred Thompson, and sat a few seats ahead of us in 
church. She turned around and saw us. We also 
saw Henrietta Francis Talcott, who was a '' Semi- 
nary girl." She wants me to come to see her in 
her New York home. 

November 19. — We wish we were at Gettysburg 
to-day to hear President Lincoln's and Edward Ev- 
erett's addresses at the dedication of the National 
Cemetery. We will read them in to-morrow's pa- 
pers, but it will not be like hearing them. 

Aiithofs Note, 191 1. — Forty-eight years have 
elapsed since Lincoln's speech was delivered at the 
dedication of the Soldiers' Cemetery at Gettysburg. 
So eloquent and remarkable was his utterance that I 
believe I am correct in stating that every word 
spoken has now been translated into all known lan- 
guages and is regarded as one of the World Classics. 
The same may be said of Lincoln's letter to the 
mother of five sons lost in battle. I make no apology 
for inserting in this place both the speech and the 
letter. Mr. Whitelaw Reid, the American Ambas- 
sador to Great Britain, in an address on Lincoln de- 
livered at the University of Birmingham in Decem- 
ber, 19 10, remarked in reference to this letter, 
*' What classic author in our common English 
tongue has surpassed that?" and next may I ask, 
'' What English or American orator has on a similar 



158 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1863 

occasion surpassed this address on the battlefield of 
Gettysburg ? " 

" Four score and seven years ago, our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation con- 
ceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that 
all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in 
a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any 
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We 
have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a 
final resting place for those who gave tlieir lives that 
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 
])ropcr that we should do this. But in a larger sense 
we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot 
hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here have consecrated it far above our 
poor power to add or detract. The world will little 
note, nor long remember, what we say here — but it 
can never forget what they did here. It is for us, 
the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfin- 
ished work which they who fonght here have thus 
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion 
to lliat cause for which they gave the last full measure 
of (Uvot ion— that we here highly resolve, that these 
dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation 
under God shall have a new birth of freedom — and 
that government of the peoi)le, by the people and for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

n was during the dark days of the war that he 
wrote this simple letter of sympathy to a bereaved 
mother : — 



i863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 159 

" 1 have been showti, in the files of the War 
Department, a statement that you are the mother of 
five sons who have died gloriously on the field of 
battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any 
words of mine which should attempt to beguile you 
from your grief for a loss so overwhelming, but I 
cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation 
which may be found in the thanks of the Republic 
they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father 
may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and 
leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and 
lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have 
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom." 

November 21. — Abbic Clark and her cousin Cora 
came to call and invited me and her soldier cousin 
to come to dinner to-night, at Mrs. Thompson's. 
He will be here this afternoon and I will give him 
the invitation. James is asked for the evening. 

November 22. — We had a delightful visit. Mr. 
Thompson took us up into his den and showed us 
curios from all over the world and as many pic- 
tures as we would find in an art gallery. 

Friday. — Last evening Uncle Edward took a 
party of us, including Abbie Clark, to Wallack's 
Theater to see " Rosedale," which is having a great 
run. I enjoyed it and told James it was the best 
play I ever " heard." He said I must not say that 
1 '' heard " a play. I " saw " it. I stand cor- 
rected. 



i6o VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1863 

I told James that I heard of a young girl who 
went abroad and on her return some one asked her 
if she saw King Lear and she said, no, he was sick 
all the time she was there ! I just loved the play 
last night and laughed and cried in turn, it seemed 
so real. I don't know what Grandmother will say, 
but I wrote her about it and said, " When you are 
with the Romans, you must do as the Romans do." 
I presume she will say " that is not the way you were 
brought up." 

December 7. — The 4th New York Heavy Artil- 
lery has orders to move to Fort Ethan Allen, near 
Washington, and I have orders to return to Canan- 
daigua. I have enjoyed the five weeks very much 
and as " the soldier " w^as on parole most of the time 
I have seen much of interest in the city. Uncle 
Edward says that he has lived here forty years but 
has never visited some of the places that we have 
seen, so he told me when I mentioned climbing to 
the top of Trinity steeple. 

Canandatgua, December 8. — Home again. I 
had military attendance as far as Paterson, N. J., 
and came the rest of the way with strangers. Not 
caring to talk I liked it just as well. When I said 
good bye I could not hel]) wondering whether it 
was for years, or fore\'er. This cruel war is ter- 
rible and precious li\'cs arc Ix'ing sacrificed and 



i863] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA i6i 

hearts broken every day. What is to be the result ? 
We can only trust and wait. 

Christmas Eve, 1863.— Sarah Gibson Howell was 
married to Major Foster this evening. She invited 
all the society and many others. It was a beautiful 
wedding and we all enjoyed it. Some time ago I 
asked her to write in my album and she sewed a 
lock of her black curling hair on the page and in the 
center of it wrote, '' Forget not Gippie." 

December 31. —Our brother John was married in 
Boston to-day to Laura Arnold, a lovely girl. 



1 864 

/l/v'il I. — Grand fallicr had decided to ^o to New 
^'()^k to attend the fair i;iven by the Sanitary C\)ni- 
niission and he is takini; two immense Ijooks, which 
are more tlian one lnin(hed years old, to ])resent to 
the Commission, lor the henelit oT the war fnnd. 



A(^yU I S.(irand lather retnrned home to-day, 
nnexpectc'dly to ns. I l<ne\v he was sick when I 
met him at the door. Me had traveled all mj^ht 
alone from New York, althoni^h he said that a 
strani^cr, a Tellow j)assen<^\"i", Irom Ann /\rl)or, 
Mich., on the train noticed that he was snlTerint;- and 
was very kind to him. lie said he fell in his room 
at (iramercy Tark Motel in the nii^ht, and his knee 
was \'ery painfnl. \Nv sent for old Dr. Chenev and 
he said the hnrt was a serions one and needed most 
caret nl attention. I was invited to a spelling" school 
at Ahhie (lark's m the ex'eninL; and ( irandmother 
said that she and /\nna wonld take care of (irand- 
father till I i^ot hack, and tlun I conld sit n]) by 
iiim the rest of the nii;ht. We spelled down and 
had <|nile a merrv lime. Majt)r C S. .\ldiich had 
esca])ed from prison and was there. Me came home 
with me, as my soldier is down in V^iri^inia. 

l62 



i8f)4l VIIJ.A(.K \AV\: IN AMKkK'A i(.,^ 

/l/^ii! \<). ( ii'.ind tallu'i" is miuli woisc. lie was 
(kliiions all nii;lil. VVc have sen! for I )r. kose- 
vvaiiH' III coiiiisc-l and Mrs. I j_i;lil l< tolc lias coiik' Io 
stay vvilli us all the (liiic and v\ c have sint fur Aiint 
(iloriainia. 

April 20. — (irand father dictated a letter lo-ni^dit 
to a friend of his in New York. After I had hn- 
ished he asked nie if I had mended his i^loves. I 
said no, hnl I would have llieiii ready when he 
wanted Iheni. Dear ( irandfather ! he looks so sick 
I fear he will never wear his ,i;Ioves a<.;ain. 

May \().— \ have not writ ten in my diary for a 
month and it has heen the saddest moiilh of my life. 
Dear, dear (irandfalher is dead. lie was hnried 
May J, just two weeks from the day that he relnrned 
from New York. We did everythin_i^ for him that 
could he done, hut at the end of the first week the 
doctors saw that he was heyond all human aid. 
Uncle dhomas told tlie doctors that they miisl tell 
him. lie was much surprised hut received ihe ver- 
dict calmly. lie said "he had no noles out and 
perhaps it was the hest lime to ^o." I le had tauj^dit 
us how to live and he seemed delermined to show 
us h(jw a Christian should die. I le said he wanted 
*' Grandmother and tlie children to come to him and 
have all the rest remain outside." When we came 
into tlie room he said to (irandniother, " Do you 
know what the doctors say? " She bowed her head, 



1 64 \ II.LAr.K IJFK IN AI\IKRIO\ [18^4 

and (lien he motioned for her lo eonie on one side 
and Anna and nie nw (he olher and kneel hy his hed- 
side. Me plaeed a hand upon us and n])on her and 
said (o her, ** All (he res( seem very mueh cxeited, 
hn( \(ni and 1 nuisl he eoniposed." Then he asked 
ns (o say (he J^^l Psalm, "The Lord is my Shep- 
herd," and (hen all <d' us said (he Ij^d's Traver 
toi^edier a tier (irandmodier had offered a little 
prayer for qraee and stren;^th in (his trvini; horn-. 
Then he said. " (Irandmother, you must take eare (d" 
the .qirls, and, <;irls. ycni nurst take eare of (irand- 
mother." We felt as th(niL;h our hearts would 
hreak and were sure we ne\er eould he happy a<;ain. 
Duriui^ the next few days he (d'ten spoke of dyinj^ 
and oi what we must do when he was i^one. (^nee 
when 1 was sitting' hy him he looked up and smiled 
and said, " Vou will l(\se all your roses watehini;- 
oyer me." A gocnl many husiness men eame in to 
see him to rceciyc his partinj;- hlessini^. The two 
MeKeehme hrothers, Alexander and James, eame in 
together on their way hc^me from ehureh the Sunday 
be f (Me he died. Dr. Daggett came very often. Mr. 
Alexander IIowcll and Mrs. Worthingtou eame, too, 
lie lived until Saturday, the ^^oth, and in the 
nKMMiing he said, *' Open the door wide." We did 
so and he said, " Let the King o\ Cdory enter in." 
A^ery s(Min after he said. " 1 am going home t(~> 
Laradise," and then sank into that sleep which on 
this earth kncnvs no waking. 1 sat hy the windcnv 
near his bed and watched the rain beat into the 



1864J viLLA(;i': Mi-r: in ami^kica \(>^ 

i;ra,ss and saw llii: pcoiiir., and ciocnsc:, and dall')- 
dils |jcL;inniii,^ to cuinc np ont ol" llic ;;i'iiiim| .iml I 
tli'Hiidit to niysclt, I shall never .sec llir Mowers eonie 
U[j again witljonl tlnnkin/.', <d" llnse safl, sad days. 
ilc was hnried Monday al lei noon, May j, from I he 
Con,i;re,^ational ehnreli, and \)v. \ );{i!^'^i\\ i^reaehed 
a sernioii ironi a favorile (exl (d ( ii'.iiid l.il her s, " I 
shah (he in my nest." James and John came and 
as we stood willi dear ( iiandinother ,'ind .'dl the 
others ai'onnd hi. open _j^ra\(.: and Iie.'ird I )i". Na;'.',Mtl 
say in his heantilnl sympatlietie voice, " I'.arth to 
earth, ashes to ashes, dnsl lo dnst," v\c U\\ that 
we were losin;.^ onr hesi friend; hnl he told iis 
that we must h've for (iiandmother and so we 
will. 

The next S.'ihhath, /Amia and I were called onl of 
chnreli \)y a niesseni^er, who said that (iiandmother 
was taken snddenly ill and was dyin,^. When vve 
reached the lionse attendanls were all ahont her 
adniinisterin,L;- restoratives, hut told ns she was rap- 
idly sinldng. I asked if I mi.^lit s])eak to her and 
was reluctantly jiermitted, as they tlionc^ht hest not 
to clistnrh her. 1 sal down hy her and with tearful 
voice said, " Cirandmother, doiTt yon know that 
Grand fat lier said we were to care for yon and you 
were to care for us and if you die we cannot do as 
Grand fatlicr said?" She openerl her eyes and 
Ifjfjked at me and said cjuietly, " \)ry your eyes, child, 
1 shall not die trj-day or to-morrow." She seems 
well now. 



i66 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1864 

Inscribed in my diary : 

** They are passing away, they are passing away, 
Not only the young, but the aged and gray. 
Their places are vacaiTt, no longer we see 
The armchair in waiting, as it used to be. 
The hat and the coat are removed from the nail, 
Where for years they have hung, every day without 

fail. 
The shoes and the slippers are needed no more, 
Nor kept ready waiting, as they were of yore, 
The desk which he stood at in manhood's fresh 

prime, 
Which now shows the marks of the finger of time, 
The bright well worn keys, which were childhood's 

delight 
Unlocking the treasures kept hidden from sight. 
These now are mementoes of him who has passed, 
Who stands there no longer, as we saw him last. 
Other hands turn the keys, as he did, before, 
Other eyes will his secrets, if any, explore. 
The step once elastic, but feeble of late. 
No longer we watch for through doorway or gate, 
Though often we turn, half expecting to see, 
The loved one approaching, but ah ! 'tis not he. 
We miss him at all times, at morn when we meet, 
For the social repast, there is one vacant seat. 
At noon, and at night, at the hour of prayer, 
Our hearts fill with sadness, one voice is not there. 
Yet not without hope his departure we mourn. 
In faith and in trust, all our sorrows are borne. 
Borne upward to Him who in kindness and love 
Sends earthly afflictions to draw us above. 
Thus hoping and trusting, rejoicing, we'll go, 
Both upward and onward, through weal and through 

woe 



1864] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 167 

'Till all of life's changes and conflicts are past 
Beyond the dark river, to meet him at last." 

1In /iDemotiam 

Thomas Beals died in Canandaigua, N. Y., on 
Saturday, April 30th, 1864, in the 8ist year of his 
age. Mr. Beals was born in Boston, Mass., No- 
vember 13, 1783. 

He came to this village in October, 1803, ^^^Y 
14 years after the first settlement of the place. He 
v^as married in March, 1805, to Abigail Field, sis- 
ter of the first pastor of the Congregational church 
here. Her family, in several of its branches, have 
since been distinguished in the ministry, the legal 
profession, and in commercial enterprise. 

Living to a good old age, and well known as one 
of our most wealthy and respected citizens, Mr. 
Beals is another added to the many examples of suc- 
cessful men who, by energy and industry, have made 
their own fortune. 

On coming to this village, he was teacher in the 
Academy for a time, and afterward entered into 
mercantile business, in which he had his share of 
vicissitude. When the Ontario Savings Bank was 
established, 1832, he became the Treasurer, and 
managed it successfully till the institution ceased, in 
1835, with his withdrawal. In the meantime he 
conducted, also, a banking business of his own, and 
this was continued until a week previous to his 
death, when he formally withdrew, though for the 



i68 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1864 

last five years devolving its more active duties upon 
his son. 

As a banker, his sagacity and fidelity won for 
him the confidence and respect of all classes of i)cr- 
sons in this community. The business portion of 
our village is very much indebted to his enterprise 
for the eligible structures he built that have more 
than made good the losses sustained by fires. More 
than fifty years ago he was actively concerned in the 
building of the Congregational church, and also 
superintended the erection of the county jail and 
almshouse; for many years a trustee of Can.an- 
daigua Academy, and trustee and treasurer of the 
Congregational church. At the time of his death 
he and his wife, who survives him, w'ere the oldest 
members of the church, having united with it in 
1807, only eight years after its organization. Until 
hindered by the infirmities of age, he was a constant 
attendant of its services and ever devoutly main- 
tained the worship of God in his family. No per- 
son has been more generally known among all classes 
of our citizens. Whether at home or abroad he 
could not fail to be remarked for his gravity and 
dignity. His character w^as original, independent, 
and his manners remarkable for a dignified courtesy. 
Our citizens were familiar with his brief, emphatic 
answers with the wave of his hand. He was fond 
of books, a great reader, collected a valuable numlxr 
of volumes, and was happy in the use of language 
both in writing and conversation. In many unusual 



1864] VILLAGE LIFE IN AxMERICA 169 

ways he often showed his kind consideration for the 
poor and afflicted, and many persons hearing of his 
death gratefully recollect instances, not known to 
others, of his seasonable kindness to them in trou- 
ble. In his charities he often studied concealment 
as carefully as others court display. His marked 
individuality of character and deportment, together 
with his shrewd discernment and active habits, 
could not fail to leave a distinct impression on the 
minds of all. 

For more than sixty years he transacted business 
in one place here, and his long life thus teaches more 
than one generation the value of sobriety, diligence, 
fidelity and usefulness. 

In his last illness he remarked to a friend that he 
always loved Canandaigua; had done several things 
for its prosperity, and had intended to do more. 
He had known his measure of affliction; only four 
of eleven children survive him, but children and chil- 
dren's children ministered to the comfort of his last 
days. Notwithstanding his years and infirmities, 
he was able to visit New York, returning April i8th 
quite unwell, but not immediately expecting a fatal 
termination. As the final event drew near, he 
seemed happily prepared to meet it. He conversed 
freely with his friends and neighbors in a softened 
and benignant spirit, at once receiving and impart- 
ing benedictions. His end seemed to realize his 
favorite citation from Job: "I shall die in my 
nest." 



I70 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1864 

His funeral was attended on Monday in the Con- 
gregational church by a large assembly, Dr. Dag- 
gett, the pastor, officiating on the occasion. — Writ- 
ten by Dr. O. E. Daggett in 1864. 

May. — The 4th New York Heavy Artillery is 
having hard times in the Virginia mud and rain. 
They are near Culpeper. It is such a change from 
their snug winter quarters at Fort Ethan Allen. 
There are 2,800 men in the Regiment and 1,200 are 
sick. Dr. Charles S. Hoyt of the 126th, which is 
camping close by, has come to the help of these new 
recruits so kindly as to win every heart, quite in 
contrast to the heartlessness of their own surgeons. 
They will always love him for this. It is just like 
him. 

Jtme 22. — Captain Morris Brown, of Penn Yan, 
was killed to-day by a musket shot in the head, 
while commanding the regiment before Petersburg. 

June 2T„ 1864. — Anna graduated last Thursday, 
June 16, and was valedictorian of her class. There 
were eleven girls in the class, Ritie Tyler, Mary 
Antes, Jennie Robinson, Hattie Paddock, Lillie 
Masters, Abbie Hills, Miss McNair, Miss Pardee 
and Miss Palmer, Miss Jasper and Anna. The sub- 
ject of her essay was " The Last Time." I will 
copy an account of the exercises as they appeared 



1864] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 171 

in this week's village paper. Every one thinks it 
was written by Mr. E. M. Morse. 

A WORD FROM AN OLD MAN 

*' Mr. Editor : 

" Less than a century ago I was traveling through 
this enchanted region and accidentally heard that it 
was commencement week at the seminary. I went. 
My venerable appearance seemed to command respect 
and I received many attentions. I presented my snowy 
head and patriarchal beard at the doors of the sacred 
institution and was admitted. I heard all the classes, 
primary, secondary, tertiary, et cetera. All went 
merry as a marriage bell. Thursday was the great 
day. I made vast preparation. I rose early, dressed 
with much care. I affectionately pressed the hands 
of my two landlords and left. When I arrived at 
the seminary I saw at a glance that it was a place 
where true merit was appreciated. I was invited to 
a seat among the dignitaries, but declined. I am a 
modest man, I always was. I recognized the benign 
Principals of the school. You can find no better prin- 
ciples in the states than in Ontario Female Seminary. 
After the report of the committee a very lovely young 
lady arose and saluted us in Latin. I looked very 
wise, I always do. So did everybody. We all under- 
stood it. As she proceeded, I thought the grand old 
Roman tongue had never sounded so musically and 
when she pronounced the decree, ' Richmond delenda 
est,' we all hoped it might be prophetic. Then fol- 
lowed the essays of the other young ladies and then 
every one waited anxiously for ' The Last Time.' 
At last it came. The story was beautifully told, the 
adieux were tenderly spoken. We saw the withered 



172 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1864 

flowers of early years scattered along the academic 
ways, and the golden fruit of scholarly culture ripen- 
ing in the gardens of the future. Enchanted by the 
sorrowful eloquence, bewildered by the melancholy 
brilliancy, I sent a rosebud to the charming valedic- 
torian and wandered out into the grounds. I went 
to the concert in the evening and was pleased and 
delighted. So was everybody. I shall return next 
year unless the gout carries me off. I hope I shall 
hear just such beautiful music, see just such beautiful 
faces and dine at the same excellent hotel. 

Senex." 



Anna closed her valedictory with these words : 

*' May we meet at one gate when all's over ; 
The ways they are many and wide, 
And seldom are two ways the same ; 

Side by side may we stand 
At the same little door when all's done. 
The ways they are many, 
The end it is one." 

July 10. — We have had word of the death of 
Spencer F. Lincoln. One more brave soldier sacri- 
ficed. 

August. — The New York State S. S. Convention 
was held in Buffalo and among others Fanny Gay- 
lord, Mary Field and myself attended. We had a 
fine time and were entertained at the home of Mr. 
and Mrs. Sexton. Her mother is living with her, 
a dear old lady who was Judge Atwater's daughter 



1864] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 173 

and used to go to school to Grandfather Beals. We 
went with other delegates on an excursion to 
Niagara Falls and went into the express office at the 
R. R. station to see Grant Schley, who is express 
agent there. He said it seemed good to see so many 
home faces. 



September i. — My war letters come from George- 
town Hospital now. Mr. Noah T. Clarke is very 
anxious and sends telegrams to Andrew Chesebro 
every day to go and see his brother. 

September 30. — To-day the '' Benjamin " of the 
family reached home under the care of Dr. J. Byron 
Hayes, who was sent to Washington after him. I 
went over to Mr. Noah T. Clarke's to see him and 
found him just a shadow of his former self. How- 
ever, '' hope springs eternal in the human breast " 
and he says he knows he will soon be well again. 
This is his thirtieth birthday and it is glorious that 
he can spend it at home. 

October 1. — Mr. Noah T. Clarke accompanied 
his brother to-day to the old home in Naples and 
found two other soldier brothers, William and Jo- 
seph, had just arrived on leave of absence from the 
army so the mother's heart sang " Praise God from 
whom all blessings flow." The fourth brother has 
also returned to his home in Illinois, disabled. 



174 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1864 

November, — They are holding Union Revival 
Services in town now. One evangelist from out of 
town said he would call personally at the homes and 
ask if all were Christians. Anna told Grandmother 
if he came here she should tell him about her. 
Grandmother said we must each give an account 
for ourselves. Anna said she should tell him about 
her little Grandmother anyway. We saw him com- 
ing up the walk about 11 a.m. and Anna went to 
the door and asked him in. They sat down in the 
parlor and he remarked about the pleasant weather 
and Canandaigua such a beautiful town and the peo- 
ple so cultured. She said yes, she found the town 
every way desirable and the people pleasant, though 
she had heard it remarked that strangers found it 
hard to get acquainted and that you had to have 
a residence above the R. R. track and give a satis- 
factory answer as to who your Grandfather was, 
before admittance was granted to the best society. 
He said he had been kindly received everywhere. 
She said "everybody likes ministers." (He was 
quite handsome and young.) He asked her how 
long she had lived here and she told him nearly all 
of her brief existence! She said if he had asked 
her how old she was she would have told him she 
was so young that Will Adams last May was ap- 
pointed her guardian. He asked how many there 
were in the family and she said her Grandmother, 
her sister and herself. He said, " They are Chris- 
tians, I suppose." " Yes," she said, " my sister is a 



1864] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 175 

S. S. teacher and my Grandmother was born a 
Christian, about 80 years ago." " Indeed," he said. 
*' I would like to see her." Anna said she would 
have to be excused as she seldom saw company. 
When he arose to go he said, " My dear young lady, 
I trust that you are a Christian." " Mercy yes," 
she said, '' years ago." He said he was very glad 
and hoped she would let her light shine. She said 
that was what she was always doing — that the other 
night at a revival meeting she sang every verse of 
every hymn and came home feeling as though she 
had herself personally rescued by hand at least fifty 
" from sin and the grave." He smiled approvingly 
and bade her good bye. She told Grandmother she 
presumed he would say " he had not found so great 
faith, no not in Israel." ^ 

We have Teachers' meetings now and Mrs. 
George Wilson leads and instructs us on the Sunday 
School lesson for the following Sunday. We met 
at Mrs. Worthington's this evening. I think Mrs. 
Wilson knows Barnes' notes, Cruden's Concordance, 
the Westminster Catechism and the Bible from be- 
ginning to end. 



1 865 

March 5. — I have just read President Lincoln's 
second inaugural address. It only takes five min- 
utes to read it but, oh, how much it contains. 

March 20. — Hardly a day passes that we do not 
hear news of Union victories. Every one predicts 
that the war is nearly at an end. 

March 29. — An officer arrived here from the 
front yesterday and he said that, on Saturday morn- 
ing-, shortly after the battle commenced which re- 
sulted so gloriously for the Union in front of Peters- 
burg, President Lincoln, accompanied by General 
Grant and staff, started for the battlefield, and 
reached there in time to witness the close of the 
contest and the bringing in of the prisoners. His 
presence was immediately recognized and created 
the most intense enthusiasm. He afterwards rode 
over the battlefield, listened to the report of General 
Parke to General Grant, and added his thanks for 
the great service rendered in checking the onslaught 
of the rebels and in capturing so many of their num- 
ber. T read this morning the order of Secretary 
vStanton for the flag raising on Fort Sumter. It 
reads thus: *' War department. Adjutant General's 

176 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 177 

office, Washington, March 27th, 1865, General Or- 
ders No. 50. Ordered, first : That at the hour of 
noon, on the 14th day of April, 1865, Brevet Major 
General Anderson will raise and plant upon the 
ruins of Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, the 
same U. S. Flag which floated over the battlements 
of this fort during the rebel assault, and which was 
lowered and saluted by him and the small force of 
his command when the works were evacuated on the 
14th day of April, 1861. Second, That the flag, 
when raised be saluted by 100 guns from Fort Sum- 
ter and by a national salute from every fort and 
rebel battery that fired upon Fort Sumter. Third, 
That suitable ceremonies be had upon the occasion, 
under the direction of Major-General William T. 
Sherman, whose military operations compelled the 
rebels to evacuate Charleston, or, in his absence, 
under the charge of Major-General O. A. Gillmore, 
commanding the department. Among the ceremo- 
nies will be the delivery of a public address by the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Fourth, That the naval 
forces at Charleston and their Commander on that 
station be invited to participate in the ceremonies 
of the occasion. By order of the President of the 
United States. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of 
War." 

April, 1865. — What a month this has been. On 
the 6th of April Governor Fenton issued this procla- 
mation : '' Richmond has fallen. The wicked men 



178 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

who governed the so-called Confederate States have 
fled their capital, shorn of their power and influence. 
The rebel armies have been defeated, broken and 
scattered. Victory everywhere attends our ban- 
ners and our armies, and we are rapidly moving to 
the closing scenes of the war. Through the self- 
sacrifice and heroic devotion of our soldiers, the 
life of the republic has been saved and the American 
Union preserved. I, Reuben E. Fenton, Governor 
of the State of New York, do designate Friday, the 
14th of April, the day appointed for the cere- 
mony of raising the United States flag on Fort 
Sumter, as a day of Thanksgiving, prayer and praise 
to Almighty God, for the signal blessings we have 
received at His hands." 

Saturday^ April 8. — The cannon has fired a salute 
of thirty-six guns to celebrate the fall of Richmond. 
This evening the streets were thronged with men, 
women and children all acting crazy as if they had 
not the remotest idea where they were or what they 
were doing. Atwater block was beautifully lighted 
and the band was playing in front of it. On the 
square they fired guns, and bonfires were lighted in 
the streets. Gov. Clark's house was lighted from 
the very garret and they had a transparency in front, 
with "' Richmond " on it, which Fred Thompson 
made. We didn't even light " our other candle," 
for Grandmother said she preferred to keep Satur- 
day night and pity and pray for the poor suffering, 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 179 

wounded soldiers, who are so apt to be forgotten in 
the hour of victory. 



Sunday Evening, April 9. — There were great 
crowds at church this morning. Dr. Daggett's text 
was from Prov. 18: 10: *' The name of the Lord 
is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, 
and is safe." It was a very fine sermon. They 
sang hymns relating to our country and Dr. Dag- 
gett's prayers were full of thanksgiving. Mr. Noah 
T. Clarke had the chapel decorated with flags and 
opened the Sunday School by singing, '' Marching 
On," " My Country, 'tis of Thee," " The Star 
Spangled Banner," '' Glory, Hallelujah," etc. Hon. 
Wm. H. Lamport talked very pleasantly and paid a 
very touching tribute to the memory of the boys, 
who had gone out to defend their country, who 
would never come *' marching home again." He 
lost his only son, 18 years old (in the 126th), about 
two years ago. I sat near Mary and Emma 
Wheeler and felt so sorry for them. They could 
not sing. 

Monday Morning, April 10. — " Whether I am in 
the body, or out of the body, I know not, but one 
thing I know," Lee has surrendered! and all the 
people seem crazy in consequence. The bells are 
ringing, boys and girls, men and women are run- 
ning through the streets wild with excitement; the 



i8o VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

flags are all flying, one from the top of our church, 
and such a '* hurrah boys " generally, I never 
dreamed of. We were quietly eating our breakfast 
this morning about 7 o'clock, when our church bell 
commenced to ring, then the Methodist bell, and now 
all the bells in town are ringing. Mr. Noah T. 
Clarke ran by, all excitement, and I don't believe 
he knows where he is. No school to-day. I saw 
Capt. Aldrich passing, so I rushed to tlie window 
and he waved his hat. I raised the window 
and asked him what was the matter? He came to 
the front door w^here I met him and he almost shook 
my hand off and said, " The war is over. We have 
Lee's surrender, with his own name signed." I am 
going down town now, to see for myself, what is 
going on. Later — I have returned and I never saw 
such performances in my life. Every man has a 
bell or a horn, and every girl a flag and a little bell, 
and every one is tied with red, white and blue rib- 
bons. I am going down town again now, with my 
flag in one hand and bell in the other and make all 
the noise I can. Mr. Noah T. Clarke and other 
leading citizens are riding around on a dray cart 
with great bells in their hands ringing them as hard 
as they can. Dr. Cook beat upon an old gong. 
The latest musical instrument invented is called the 
"Jerusalem fiddle." Some boys put a dry goods 
box upon a cart, put some rosin on the edge of the 
box and pulled a piece of timber back and forth 
across it, making most unearthly sounds. They 



1865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 181 

drove through all the streets, Ed Lampman riding 
on the horse and driving it. 

Monday evening, April 10. — I have been out 
walking for the last hour and a half, looking at the 
brilliant illuminations, transpareneies and every- 
thing else and 1 don't believe I was ever so tired in 
my life. The bells have not stopped ringing more 
than five minutes all day and every one is glad to 
see Canandaigua startled out of its propriety for 
onee. Every yard of red, white and blue ribbon in 
the stores has been sold, alscj every candle and every 
flag. One society worked hard all the afternoon 
making transparencies and then there were no can- 
dles U) put in to light them, but they will be ready 
for the next celebration when peace is i)r()claimed. 
The Court House, At water Block, and hotel have 
about two dozen candles in each window throughout, 
besides flags and mottoes of every description. It 
is certainly the best impromptu display ever gotten 
up in this town. " Victory is Grant-ed," is in large 
red, white and blue letters in front of Atwater 
Block. The speeches on the scpiare tliis morning 
were all very good. Dr. Daggett commenced with 
prayer, and such a prayer, I wish all could have 
heard it. Hon. Francis Granger, E. G. Lapham, 
Judge Smith, Alexander Howell, Noah T. Clarke 
and others made speeches and we sang " Old Hun- 
dred " in conclusion, and Rev. Dr. liibbard dis- 
missed us with the benediction. I shook hands with 



i82 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

Mr. Noah T. Clarke, but he told me to be careful and 
not hurt him, for he blistered his hands to-day ring- 
ing that bell. He says he is going to keep the bell 
for his grandchildren. Between the speeches on the 
square this morning a song was called for and Gus 
Coleman mounted the steps and started '' John 
Brown " and all the assembly joined in the chorus, 
" Glory, Hallelujah." This has been a never to be 
forgotten day. 

April 15. — The news came this morning that our 
dear president, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated 
yesterday, on the day appointed for thanksgiving 
for Union victories. I have felt sick over it all day 
and so has every one that I have seen. All seem 
to feel as though they had lost a personal friend, 
and tears flow plenteously. How soon has sorrow 
followed upon the heels of joy! One w^eek ago to- 
night we were celebrating our victories with loud 
acclamations of mirth and good cheer. Now every 
one is silent and sad and the earth and heavens seem 
clothed in sack-cloth. The bells have been tolling 
this afternoon. The flags are all at half mast, 
draped with mourning, and on every store and 
dwelling-house some sign of the nation's loss is 
visible. Just after breakfast this morning, I looked 
out of the window and saw a group of men listening 
to the reading of a morning paper, and I feared 
from their silent, motionless interest that something 
dreadful had happened, but I was not prepared to 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 183 

hear of the cowardly murder of our President. 
And WilHam H. Seward, too, I suppose cannot sur- 
vive his wounds. Oh, how horrible it is ! I went 
down town shortly after I heard the news, and it 
was wonderful to see the effect of the intelligence 
upon everybody, small or great, rich or poor. 
Every one was talking low, with sad and anxious 
looks. But we know that God still reigns and will 
do what is best for us all. Perhaps we're *' putting 
our trust too much in princes," forgetting the Great 
Ruler, who alone can create or destroy, and there- 
fore He has taken from us the arm of flesh that 
we may lean more confidingly and entirely upon 
Him. I trust that the men who committed 
these foul deeds will soon be brought to jus- 
tice. 

Sunday, Easter Day, 'April 16. — I went to church 
this morning. The pulpit and choir-loft were cov- 
ered with flags festooned with crape. Although a 
very disagreeable day, the house was well filled. 
The first hymn sung was " Oh God our help in ages 
past, our hope for years to come." Dr. Daggett's 
prayer, I can never forget, he alluded so beautifully 
to the nation's loss, and prayed so fervently that the 
God of our fathers might still be our God, through 
every calamity or affliction, however severe or mys- 
terious. All seemed as deeply affected as though 
each one had been suddenly bereft of his best 
friend. The hymn sung after the prayer, com- 



i84 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

menced with " Yes, the Redeemer rose." Dr. Dag- 
gett said that he had intended to preach a sermon 
upon the resurrection. He read the psahn begin- 
ning, " Lord, Thou hast been our dwelHng-place in 
all generations." His text was *' That our faith 
and hope might be in God." Lie commenced by 
saying, *' I feel as you feel this morning: our sad 
hearts have all throbbed in unison since yesterday 
morning when the telegram announced to us Abra- 
ham Lincoln is shot." He said the last week would 
never be forgotten, for never had any of us seen 
one come in with so much joy, that went out with 
so much sorrow. His whole sermon related to the 
President's life and death, and, in conclusion, he 
exhorted us not to be despondent, for he was con- 
fident that the ship of state would not go down, 
though the helmsman had suddenly been taken away 
while the promised land was almost in view. Lie 
prayed for our new President, that he might be filled 
with grace and power from on High, to perform 
his high and holy trust. On Thursday we are to 
have a union meeting in our church, but it will not 
be the day of general rejoicing and thanksgiving w^e 
expected. All noisy demonstrations will be omitted. 
In Sunday school the desk was draped with mourn- 
ing, and the flag at half-mast was also festooned 
wnth crape. Mr. Noah T. Clarke opened the exer- 
cises with the hymn '' He leadeth me," followed by 
** Though the days are dark with sorrow," '' We 
know not what's before us," '' My days are gliding 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 185 

swiftly by." Then, Mr. Clarke said that we always 
meant to sing '' America," after every victory, and 
last Monday he was wondering if w^e would not 
have to sing it twice to-day, or add another verse, 
but our feelings have changed since then. Never- 
theless he thought we had better sing '' America," 
for we certainly ought to love our country more 
than ever, now that another, and such another, mar- 
tyr, had given up his life for it. So we sang it. 
Then he talked to the children and said that last 
Friday was supposed to be the anniversary of the 
day upon which our Lord was crucified, and though, 
at the time the dreadful deed was committed, every 
one felt the day to be the darkest one the earth 
ever knew; yet since then, the day has been called 
'' Good Friday," for it was the death of Christ 
which gave life everlasting to all the people. So he 
thought that life would soon come out of darkness, 
which now overshadows us all, and that the 
death of Abraham Lincoln might yet prove 
the nation's life in God's own most mysterious 
way* 

Wednesday evening, April 19, 1865. — This being 
the day set for the funeral of Abraham Lincoln at 
Washington, it was decided to hold the service to- 
day, instead of Thursday, as previously announced 
in the Congregational church. All places of busi- 
ness were closed and the bells of the village churches 
tolled from half past ten till eleven o'clock. It is 



i86 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

the fourth anniversary of the first bloodshed of the 
war at Baltimore. It was said to-da3% that while 
the services were being held in the White House 
and Lincoln's body lay in state under the dome 
of the capitol, that more than twenty-five millions 
of people all over the civilized world were gathered 
in their churches weeping over the death of the mar- 
tyred President. We met at our church at half 
after ten o'clock this morning. The bells tolled 
until eleven o'clock, when the services commenced. 
The church was beautifully decorated with flags 
and black and white cloth, wreaths, mottoes and 
flowers, the galleries and all. The whole effect 
was fine. There was a shield beneath the arch 
of the pulpit with this text upon it : '' The mem- 
ory of the just is blessed." It was beautiful. 
Under the choir-loft the picture of Abraham 
Lincoln hung amid the flags and drapery. The 
motto, beneath the gallery, was this text : " Know 
ye that the Lord He is God." The four pastors 
of the place walked in together and took seats upon 
the platform, which w^as constructed for the occa- 
sion. The choir chanted '' Lord, Thou hast been 
our dwelling-place in all generations," and then the 
Episcopal rector, Rev. Mr. Leffingwell, read from 
the psalter, and Rev. Dr. Daggett followed with 
prayer. Judge Taylor was then called upon for 
a short address, and he spoke well, as he always 
does. The choir sang ** God is our refuge and our 
strength." 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 187 

Thursday, April 20. — The papers are full of the 
account of the funeral obsequies of President Lin- 
coln. We take Harper's Weekly and every event 
is pictured so vividly it seems as though we were eye 
witnesses of it all. The picture of " Lincoln at 
home " is beautiful. What a dear, kind man he 
was. It is a comfort to know that the assassination 
was not the outcome of an organized plot of 
Southern leaders, but rather a conspiracy of a few 
fanatics, who undertook in this way to avenge the 
defeat of their cause. It is rumored that one of 
the conspirators has been located. 

April 24. — Fannie Gaylord and Kate Lapham 
have returned from their eastern trip and told us 
of attending the President's funeral in Albany, and 
I had a letter from Bessie Seymour, who is in New 
York, saying that she walked in the procession until 
half past two in the morning, in order to see his 
face. They say that they never saw him in life, but 
in death he looked just as all the pictures represent 
him. We all wear Lincoln badges now, with pin 
attached. They are pictures of Lincoln upon a tiny 
flag, bordered with crape. Susie Daggett has just 
made herself a flag, six feet by four. It was a lot 
of work. Mrs. Noah T. Clarke gave one to her 
husband upon his birthday, April 8. I think every- 
body ought to own a flag. 

April 26. — Now we have the news that J. Wilkes 
Booth, who shot the President and who has been 



i88 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

concealing himself in Virginia, has been caught, and 
refusing to surrender was shot dead. It has taken 
just twelve days to bring him to retribution. I am 
glad that he is dead if he could not be taken alive, 
but it seems as though shooting was too good for 
him. However, we may as well take this as really 
God's way, as the death of the President, for if 
he had been taken alive, the country would have 
been so furious to get at him and tear him to pieces 
the turmoil would have been great and desperate. 
It may be the best w^ay to dispose of him. Of 
course, it is best, or it would not be so. Mr. Morse 
called this evening and he thinks Booth was shot by 
a lot of cowards. The flags have been flying all 
day, since the news came, but all, excepting Albert 
Granger, seem sorry that he was not disabled instead 
of being shot dead. Albert seems able to look into 
the " beyond " and also to locate departed spirits. 
His '' latest " is that he is so glad that Booth got 
to h — 1 before Abraham Lincoln got to Springfield. 
Mr. Fred Thompson went down to New York 
last Saturday and while stopping a few minutes at 
St. Johnsville, he heard a man crowing over the 
death of the President. Mr. Thompson marched up 
to him, collared him and landed him nicely in the 
gutter. The bystanders were delighted and carried 
the champion to a platform and called for a speech, 
which was given. Quite a little episode. Every 
one who hears the story, says : '' Three cheers for 
F. F. Thompson." 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 189 

The other afternoon at our society Kate Lapham 
wanted to divert our minds from gossip I think, 
and so started a discussion upon the respective char- 
acters of Washington and Napoleon. It was just 
after supper and Laura Chapin was about resuming 
her sewing and she exclaimed, " Speaking of Wash- 
ington, makes me think that I ought to wash 
my hands," so she left the room for that pur- 
pose. 

May 7. — Anna and I wore our new poke bonnets 
to church this morning and thought we looked quite 
" scrumptious," but Grandmother said after we got 
hume, if she had realized how unbecoming they 
were to us and to the house of the Lord, she could 
not have countenanced them enough to have sat in 
the same pew. However, she tried to agree with 
Dr. Daggett in his text, " It is good for us to be 
here." It was the first time in a month that he 
had not preached about the affairs of the Nation. 

In the afternoon the Sacrament was administered 
and Rev. A. D. Eddy, D. D., who was pastor from 
1823 to 1835, was present and officiated. Deacon 
Castle and Deacon Hayes passed the communion. 
Dr. Eddy concluded the services with some personal 
memories. He said that forty-two years ago last 
November, he presided upon a similar occasion for 
the first time in his life and it was in this very 
church. He is now the only surviving male mem- 
ber who was present that day, but there are six 



I90 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

women living, and Grandmother is one of the 
six. 

The Monthly Concert of Prayer for Missions was 
held in the chapel in the evening. Dr. Daggett told 
us that the collection taken for missions during the 
past year amounted to $500. He commended us 
and said it was the largest sum raised in one year 
for this purpose in the twenty years of his pastorate. 
Dr. Eddy then said that in contrast he w^ould tell 
us that the collection for missions the first year he 
was here, amounted to $5, and that he was advised 
to touch very lightly upon the subject in his appeals 
as it was not a popular theme with the majority of 
the people. One member, he said, annexed three 
ciphers to his name when asked to subscribe to a 
missionary document w^hich was circulated, and an- 
other man replied thus to an appeal for aid in evan- 
gelizing a portion of Asia: '* If you want to send 
a missionary to Jerusalem, Yates county, I will 
contribute, but not a cent to go to the other side 
of the world." 

Rev. C. H. A. Buckley was present also and gave 
an interesting talk. By w^ay of illustration, he said 
he knew a small boy who had been earning twenty- 
five cents a week for the heathen by giving up eating 
butter. The other day he seemed to think that his 
generosity, as well as his self-denial, had reached 
the utmost limit and exclaimed as he sat at the table, 
" I think the heathen have had gospel enough, please 
pass the butter." 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 191 

May 10. — Jeff Davis was captured to-day at 
Irwinsville, Ga., when he was attempting to escape 
in woman's apparel. Mr. Green drew a picture 
of him, and Mr. Finley made photographs 
from it. We bought one as a souvenir of the 
war. 

The big headlines in the papers this morning say, 
''The hunt is up. He brandisheth a bowie-knife 
but yieldeth to six solid arguments. At Irwinsville, 
Ga., about daylight on the loth instant. Col. Prich- 
ard, commanding the 4th Michigan Cavalry, cap- 
tured Jeff Davis, family and staff. They will be 
forwarded under strong guard without delay." 
The flags have been flying all day, and every one 
is about as pleased over the manner of his capture 
as over the fact itself. Lieutenant Hathaway, one 
of the staff, is a friend of Mr. Manning Wells, and 
he was pretty sure he would follow Davis, so we 
were not surprised to see his name among the cap- 
tured. Mr. Wells says he is as fine a horseman as 
he ever saw. 

Monday evg., May 22. — I went to Teachers' 
meeting at Mrs. Worthington's to-night. Mrs. 
George Willson is the leader and she told us at the 
last meeting to be prepared this evening to give our 
opinion in regard to the repentance of Solomon be- 
fore he died. We concluded that he did repent 
although the Bible does not absolutely say so. 
Grandmother thinks such questions are unprofitable, 



192 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1805 

as we would better be repenting of our sins, instead 
of luinting up Solomon's at this late day. 

May 2^. — We arise about 5 :^o nowadays and 
Anna does not like it very well. I asked her why 
she was not as good natiu'ed as usual to-day and 
she said it \\as beeause she got up " s'urly." She 
thinks Solomon nuist ha\e been aequainted with 
Grandmother when he wrote " She ariseth while it 
is yet night and gi\eth meat to her household and 
a pcnnion lo her maidens." Patriek Burns, the 
" poet." who has also been our man oi all work 
the past }'ear, has left us to go into Mr. ^^leKeehnie's 
emj)loy. He seemed to feel great regret when he 
bade us farewell and told us he never li\ed in a bet- 
ter regulated home than L>urs and he hoped his sue- 
cessor wluiKI take the same interest in us that he 
had. Perhaps he will gi\"e us a reeommendation ! 
lie left one o\ his p^^ems as a somenir. It is en- 
titled, " There will soon be an end to the war," writ- 
ten in ]\lareh. hence a prophecy. He said Mr. 
Morse had read it and pronounced it *' tip top." It 
was mostly written in capitals and I asked him 
if he followed an)- rule in regard to their use. 
He said *' Oh, \"es, alwa\s begin a line with one and 
then use your own discretion with the rest." 

May 25. — I wish that 1 could ha\e been in Wash- 
ington this week, to ha\e witnessed the grand review 
of Meade's and Sherman's armies. Tlie newspaper 



i86sj VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 193 

accounts are iikjsI llirilling;. Hie review com- 
menced on Tuesday nKjrning and lasted two days. 
it t(jok over six hours for Meade's army to pass the 
grand stand, which was erected in front of the 
J 'resident's house. Jt was witnessed by the Presi- 
dent, (Jenerals Grant, Meade, and Sherman, Secre- 
tary Stant(jn, and many others in high authority. 
At ten o'clock, Wednesday morning, Sherman's 
army commenced tfj pass in review. His men did 
n(jt show the signs of hardship and suffering which 
marked the appearance of the Army of the Poto- 
mac. The scenes enacted were historic and won- 
derful. Ldags were Hying everywhere and win- 
dows, door.steps and sidewalks were crowded with 
people, eager to get a view of the grand armies. 
The city was as full of strangers, who had come 
to see the sight, as on Inauguration Day. Very 
soon, all that are left of the companies, who went 
from here, will be marching home, '' with glad and 
gallant tread." 

June 3. — I was invited up to Sonnenberg yester- 
day and Lottie and Abbie Clark called for me at 
5:30 P.M., with their pony and democrat wagon. 
Jennie Rankine was the only other lady present and, 
for a wonder, the party consisted of six gentlemen 
and five ladies, which has not often been the case 
during the war. After supper we adjourned to the 
lawn and played crocjuet, a new game which Mr. 
Thompson just brought from New York. It is 



194 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

something like billiards, only a mallet is used instead 
of a cue to hit the balls. I did not like it very 
well, because I couldn't hit the balls through the 
wickets as I wanted to. " We " sang all the songs, 
patriotic and sentimental, that we could think of. 
Mr. Lyon came to call upon me to-day, before he 
returned to New York. He is a very pleasant 
young man. I told him that I regretted that I could 
not sing yesterday, when all the others did, and 
that the reason that I made no attempts in that line 
was due to the fact that one day in church, when 
I thought I was singing a very good alto, my grand- 
father whispered to me, and said : " Daughter, 
you are off the key," and ever since then, I had sung 
with the spirit and with the understanding, but not 
w^ith my voice. He said perhaps I could get some 
one to do my singing for me, some day. I told him 
he was very kind to give me so much encouragement. 
Anna went to a Y.M.C.A. meeting last evening at 
our chapel and said, when the hymn " Rescue the 
perishing," was given out, she just '' raised her 
Ebenezer " and sang every verse as hard as she 
could. The meeting was called in behalf of a 
young man who has been around town for the past 
few days, with only one arm, who wants to be a min- 
ister and sells sewing silk and needles and writes 
poetry during vacation to help himself along. I have 
had a cough lately and Grandmother decided yester- 
day to send for the doctor. He placed me in a chair 
and thumped my lungs and back and listened to my 



j^^-^J VJi.LAr.J- LIJK IS AMERICA 195 

hrcalliinr; wliilo C/randuKjlher sat near and watched 
liDjj iij ,il')]'(-, l;ni fjjjally she said, "Caroline isn't 
used to Ijong pounded!" '\}\<- doctor smiled and 
said he would be very careful, hut the treatiTient was 
not so severe as it seemed. y\fler he was gone, we 
asked ^^iranduiolljf-i if Jx- liked him and she said 
yes, fjiit if ,1)' )j;id knovvii of his "new-fangled" 
notion-, and ijj.il Ix- wore a full heard she might 
not have sent for him ! liCcause Dr. Carr was 
clean-shaven and also Grandfather and \)r. Oaggetl, 
and all of the Grangers, she thinks that is llie 
only ];r'4)er way. What a funny little lady she is! 

June 8. — Th^r^ have been unusual attractions 
down town for ih'- past two days. About 5 p.m. 
a man belonging to the l'a'/»-l troupe walked a rope, 
stret^lif^d across Main street from the third story 
of the Webster House to ih<- < liimney of the build- 
ing opposite. lie is said to b*- l>londin's only rival 
and certainly perforuj'-d some extraordinary feats. 
1 fe walked across and then returned backv/ards. 
'i'hen took a wheel-barrow across and returned with 
it backwards. He went across blindfolded with a 
hag over his head. Then lie attached a short 
trapeze to the rope and performe^l all sorts of gym- 
nastics. There were at least 1,000 per^ple in the 
street and in tlie windows gazing at him. Grand- 
mother says that she thinks all such performances 
are wicked, tempting Providence to win the applause 
of men. Nothing would induce her to look upon 



196 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

such things. She is a born reformer and would 
abohsh all such schemes. This morning she wanted 
us to read the i ith chapter of Hebrews to her, about 
faith, and when we had finished the forty verses, 
Anna asked her what was the difference between 
her and Moses. Grandmother said there were many 
points of difference. Anna was not found in the 
bulrushes and she was not adopted by a king's 
daughter. Anna said she was thinking liow the 
verse read, '' Moses was a proper child," and she 
could not remember having ever done anything 
strictly " proper " in her life. I noticed that Grand- 
mother did not contradict her, but only smiled. 

June 13. — Van Amburgh's circus was in town 
to-day and crowds attended and many of our most 
highly respected citizens, but Grandmother had 
other things for us to consider. 

June 16. — The census man for this town is Mr. 
Jeudevine. He called here to-day and was very in- 
quisitive, but I think I answered all of his ques- 
tions although I could not tell him the exact amount 
of my property. Grandmother made us laugh to- 
day when we showed her a picture of the Siamese 
twins, and I said, '' Grandmother, if I had been 
their mother I should have cut them apart when they 
were babies, wouldn't you?" The dear little lady 
looked up so bright and said, '' If I had been Mrs. 
Siam, I presume I should have done just as she did." 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 197 

I don't believe that we will be as amusing as she 
is when we are 82 years old. 



Saturday, July 8. — What excitement there must 
have been in Washington yesterday over the execu- 
tion of the conspirators. It seems terrible that Mrs. 
Surratt should have deserved hanging with the 
others. I saw a picture of them all upon a scaffold 
and her face was screened by an umbrella. I read 
in one paper that the doctor who dressed Booth's 
broken leg was sentenced to the Dry Tortugas. 
Jefferson Davis, I suppose, is glad to have ncAhing 
worse served upon him, thus far, than confinement 
in Fortress Monroe. It is wonderful that 800,000 
men are returning so quietly from the army to civil 
life that it is scarcely known, save by the welcome 
which they receive in their own homes. 

July 16. — Rev. Dr. Buddington, of Brooklyn, 
preached to-day. His wife was Miss Elizabeth 
Willson, Clara Coleman's sister. My Sunday 
School book is " Mill on the Floss," but Grand- 
mother says it is not Sabbath reading, so I am 
stranded for the present. 

December 8. — Yesterday was Thanksgiving day. 
I do not remember that it was ever observed in 
December before. President Johnson appointed it 
as a day of national thanksgiving for our many 



198 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1865 

blessings as a people, and Governor Fenton and 
several governors of other states have issued procla- 
mations in accordance with the President's recom- 
mendation. The weather was very unpleasant, but 
we attended the union thanksgiving service held in 
our church. The choir sang America for the open- 
ing piece. Dr. Daggett read Miriam's song of 
praise : '' The Lord hath triumphed gloriously, the 
horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." 
Then he offered one of his most eloquent and fer- 
vent prayers, in which the returned soldiers, many 
of whom are in broken health or maimed for life, 
in consequence of their devotion and loyalty to their 
country, were tenderly remembered. His text was 
from the 126th Psalm, " The Lord hath done great 
things for us, whereof we are glad." It was one of 
his best sermons. He mentioned three things in 
particular which the Lord has done for us, 
whereof we are glad : First, that the war has 
closed; second, that the Union is preserved; third, 
for the abolition of slavery. After the sermon, a 
collection was taken for the poor, and Dr. A. D. 
Eddy, who was present, offered prayer. The choir 
sang an anthem which they had especially prepared 
for the occasion, and then all joined in the doxology. 
Uncle Thomas Beals' family of four united with our 
three at Thanksgiving dinner. Uncle sent to New 
York for the oysters, and a famous big turkey, 
with all the usual accompaniments, made us a fine 
repast. Anna and Ritie Tyler are reading together 



i865] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 199 

Irving's Life of Washington, two afternoons each 
week. I wonder how long they will keep it up. 

December 11. — I have been down town buying 
material for garments for our Home Missionary 
family which we are to make in our society. Anna 
and I were cutting them out and basting them ready 
for sewing, and grandmother told us to save all the 
basting threads when we were through with them 
and tie them and wind them on a spool for use an- 
other time. Anna, who says she never wants to be- 
gin anything that she cannot finish in 15 minutes, 
felt rather tired at the prospect of this unexpected 
task and asked Grandmother how she happened to 
contract such economical ideas. Grandmother told 
her that if she and Grandfather had been wasteful 
in their younger days, we would not have any silk 
dresses to wear now. Anna said if that was the 
case she was glad that Grandmother saved the bast- 
ing thread ! 



1 866 

February 13. — Our brother James was married 
to-day to Louise Livingston James of New York 
City. 

February 20. — Our society is going to hold a fair 
for the Freedmen, in the Town Hall. Susie Dag- 
gett and I have been there all day to see about the 
tables and stoves. We got Mrs. Binks to come 
and help us. 

February 21. — Been at the hall all day, trimming 
the room. Mr. Thompson and Mr. Backus came 
down and if they had not helped us we would not 
have done much. Mr. Backus put up all the princi- 
pal drapery and made it look beautiful. 

February 22. — At the hall all day. The fair 
opened at 2 p.m. We had quite a crowd in the 
evening and took in over three hundred dollars. 
Charlie Hills and Ellsworth Daggett stayed there 
all night to take care of the hall. We had a fish 
pond, a grab-bag and a post-office. Anna says they 
had all the smart people in the post-office to write 
the letters,— Mr. Morse, Miss Achert, Albert 
Granger and herself. Some one asked Albert 



i866] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 201 

Granger if his law business was good and he said 
one man thronged into his office one day. 

February 23. — We took in two hundred dollars 
to-day at the fair. We wound up with an auction. 
We asked Mrs. George Willson if she could not write 
a poem expressing our thanks to Mr. Backus and 
she stepped aside for about five minutes and handed 
us the following lines which we sent to him. We 
think it is about the nicest thing in the whole fair. 

" In ancient time the God of Wine 
They crowned with vintage of the vine, 
And sung his praise with song and glee 
And all their best of minstrelsy. 
The Backus whom we honor now 
Would scorn to wreathe his generous brow 
With heathen emblems — better he 
Will love our gratitude to see 
Expressed in all the happy faces 
Assembled in these pleasant ])laces. 
May joy attend his footsteps here 
And crown him in a brighter sphere." 

February 24. — Susie Daggett and I went to the 
hall this morning to clean up. We sent back the 
dishes, not one broken, and disposed of everything 
but the tables and stoves, which were to be taken 
away this afternoon. We feel quite satisfied with 
the receipts so far, but the expenses will be consid- 
erable. 

In Ontario County Times of the following week 
we find this card of thanks : 



202 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1866 

February 28. — The Fair for the benefit of the 
Freedmen, held in the Town Hall on Thursday and 
Friday of last week was eminently successful, and 
the young ladies take this method of returning their 
sincere thanks to the people of Canandaigua and 
vicinity for their generous contributions and liberal 
patronage. It being the first public enterprise in 
which the Society has ventured independently, the 
young ladies were somewhat fearful of the result, 
but having met with such generous responses from 
every quarter they feel assured that they need never 
again doubt of success in any similar attempt so 
long as Canandaigua contains so many large hearts 
and corresponding purses. But our village cannot 
have all the praise this time. The Society is par- 
ticularly indebted to Mr. F. F. Thompson and Mr. 
S. D. Backus of New York City, for their very sub- 
stantial aid, not only in gifts and unstinted patron- 
age, but for their invaluable labor in the decoration 
of the hall and conduct of the Fair. But for them 
most of the manual labor would have fallen upon 
the ladies. The thanks of the Society are espe- 
cially due, also, to those ladies w^ho assisted per- 
sonally with their superior knowledge and older 
experience. Also to Mr. W. P. Fiske for his valu- 
able services as cashier, and to Messrs. Daggett, 
Chapin and Hills for services at the door ; and to all 
the little boys and girls who helped in so many w^ays. 

The receipts amounted to about $490, and thanks 
to our cashier, the money is all good, and will soon 



i866] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 203 

be on its way carrying substantial visions of some- 
thing to eat and to wear to at least a few of the poor 
Freedmen of the South. 

By order of Society, 

Carrie C. Richards, Pres't. 

Emma H. Wheeler, Secy. 

Mr. Editor — I expected to see an account of the 
Young Ladies' Fair in your last number, but only 
saw a very handsome acknowledgment by the ladies 
to the citizens. Your " local " must have been absent ; 
and I beg the privilege in behalf of myself and many 
others of doing tardy justice to the successful efforts 
of the Aid Society at their debut February 22nd. 

Gotham furnished an artist and an architect, and 
the Society did the rest. The decorations were in 
excellent taste, and so were the young ladies. The 
eatables were very toothsome. The skating pond was 
never in better condition. On entering the hall I 
paused first before the table of toys, fancy work and 
perfumery. Here was the President, and I hope I 
shall be pardoned for saying that no President since 
the days of Washington can compare with the Presi- 
dent of this Society. Then I visited a candy table, 
and hesitated a long time before deciding which I 
would rather eat, the delicacies that were sold, or the 
charming creatures who sold them. One delicious 
morsel, in a pink silk, was so tempting that I seriously 
contemplated eating her with a spoon — waterfall and 
all. [By the way, how do we know that the Romans 
wore waterfalls? Because Marc Antony, in his 
funeral oration on Mr. C?esar, exclaimed, " O water 
fall was there, my countrymen! "] At this point my 
attention was attracted by a fish pond. I tried my luck, 



204 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1866 

caught a whale, and seeing all my friends beginning 
to blubber, I determined to visit the old woman who 
lived in a shoe. — She was very glad to see me. I 
bought one of her children, which the Society can 
redeem for $1,000 in smoking caps. 

The fried oysters were delicious ; a great many 
of the bivalves got into a stew, and I helped several 
of them out. Delicate ice cream, nicely " baked in 
cowld ovens," was destroyed in immense quantities. 
I scream when I remember the plates full I devoured, 
and the number of bright women to whom I paid my 
devours. Beautiful cigar girls sold fragrant Havanas, 
and bit off the ends at five cents apiece, extra. The 
fair post-mistress and her fair clerks, so fair that they 
were almost fairies, drove a very thriving business. 

It was altogether a " great moral show." — Let no 
man say hereafter that the young ladies of Canan- 
daigua are uneducated in all that makes women lovely 
and useful. Anna Dickinson has no mission to this 
town. The members of this Society have won the ad- 
miration of all their friends, and especially of the most 
devoted of their servants, Q. E. D. 



If I had written that article, I should have given 
the praise to Susie Daggett, for it belongs to her. 

Sunday, June 24. — My Sunclay School scholars 
are learning the shorter catechism. One recited 
thirty-five answers to questions to-day, another 
twenty-six, another twenty, the others eleven. 
Very w-ell indeed. They do not see why it is called 
the '' shorter " Catechism ! They all had their am- 
brotypes taken with me yesterday at Finley's — Mary 



1 866] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 205 

Hoyt, Fannie and Ella Lyon, Ella Wood, Ella Van 
Tyne, Mary Vanderbrook, Jennie Whitlaw and 
Katie Neu. They are all going to dress in white 
and sit on the front seat in church at my wedding. 
Grandmother had Mrs. Gooding make individual 
fruit cakes for each of them and also some for each 
member of our sewing society. 

Thursday, June 21. — We went to a lawn fete at 
Mrs. F. F. Thompson's this afternoon. It was a 
beautiful sight. The flowers, the grounds, the 
young people and the music all combined to make 
the occasion perfect. 

Note: Canandaigua is the summer home of Mrs. 
Thompson, who has previously g-iven the villagfe a 
children's playj:;:round, a swimniinj;^ school, a hospital 
and a home for the aged, and this year ( 191 1) has pre- 
sented a park as a beauty spot at foot of Canandaigua 
Lake. 

June 28. — Dear Abbie Clark and Captain Wil- 
liams were married in the Congregational church 
this evening. The church was trimmed beautifully 
and Abbie hooked sweet. We attended the recep- 
tion afterwards at her house. '' May calm and sun- 
shine hallow their clasped hands." 

Jiily^ 15. — The girls of the Society have sent me 
my flag bed quilt, which they have just finished. It 
was hard work quilting such hot days but it is done 



2o6 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1866 

beautifully. Bessie Seymour wrote the names on 
the stars. In the center they used six stars for 
" Three rousing cheers for the Union." The names 
on the others are Sarah McCabe, Mary Paul, Fannie 
Paul, Fannie Palmer, Nettie Palmer, Susie Daggett, 
Fannie Pierce, Sarah Andrews, Lottie Clark, Abbie 
Williams, Carrie Lamport, Isadore Blodgett, Nan- 
nie Corson, Laura Chapin, Mary F. Fiske, Lucilla F. 
Pratt, Jennie H. Hazard, Sarah H. Foster, Mary 
Jewett, Mary C. Stevens, Etta Smith, Cornelia 
Richards, Ella Hildreth, Emma Wheeler, Mary 
Wheeler, Mrs. Pierce, Alice Jew^ett, Bessie Sey- 
mour, Clara Coleman, Julia Phelps. It kept the girls 
busy to get Abbie Clark's quilt and mine finished 
within one month. They hope that the rest of the 
girls will postpone their nuptials till there is a 
change in the weather. Mercury stands 90 degrees 
in the shade. 

July 19, 1866. — Our wedding day. W^e saw^ the 
dear little Grandmother, God bless her, watching us 
from the window as we drove away. 

Alexandria Bay, July 26. — Anna writes me that 
Charlie Wells said he had always w^anted a set of 
Clark's Commentaries, but I had carried off the 
entire Ed. 

July 28. — As we were changing boats at Burling- 
ton, Vt., for Saratoga, to our surprise, we met Cap- 



i866] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 207 

tain and Abbie Williams, but could only stop a mo- 
ment. 

Saratoga, 2gth. — We heard Rev. Theodore Cuy- 
ler preach to-day from the text, '' Demas hath for- 
saken me, having loved this present world." He 
leads devotional exercises every morning in the 
parlors of the Columbian Hotel. I spoke to him 
this morning and he said my father was one of his 
best and earliest friends. 

Canandaigua, September 1. — A party of us 
went down to the Canandaigua hotel this morning 
to see President Johnson, General Grant and Ad- 
miral Farragut and other dignitaries. The train 
stopped about half an hour and they all gave brief 
speeches. 

September 2. — Rev. Darius Sackett preached for 
Dr. Daggett this evening. 



1 867 

July 27. — Col. James M. Bull was buried from 
the home of Mr. Alexander Howell to-day, as none 
of his family reside here now. 

November 13. — Our brother John and wife and 
baby Pearl have gone to London, England, to live. 

December 28. — A large party of Canandaiguans 
went over to Rochester last evening to hear Charles 
Dickens' lecture, and enjoyed it more than I can 
possibly express. He was quite hoarse and had 
small bills distributed through the Opera House 
with the announcement : 

MR. CHARLES DICKENS 

Begs indulgence for a Severe Cold, but hopes its 
effects may not be very perceptible after a few minutes' 
Reading. 

Friday, December 27th, 1867. 

We brought these notices home with us for sou- 
venirs. He looks exactly like his pictures. It was 
worth a great deal just to look upon the man who 
wrote Little Dorrit, David Copperfield and all the 
other books, which have delighted us so much. We 

208 



1867] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 209 

hope that he will live to write a great many more. 
He spoke very appreciatively of his enthusiastic re- 
ception in this country and almost apologized for 
some of the opinions that he had expressed in his 
" American Notes," which he published, after his 
first visit here, twenty-five years ago. He evidently 
thinks that the United States of America are quite 
worth while. 



I87I 

August 6. — Under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., 
Hon. George H. Stuart, President of the U. S. 
Christian Commission, spoke in an open air meet- 
ing" on the square this afternoon and in our 
church this evening. The house was packed and 
such eloquence I never heard from mortal lips. He 
ought to be called the Whitefield of America. He 
told of the good the Christian Commission had done 
before the war and since. Such war stories I never 
heard. They took up a collection which must have 
amounted to hundreds of dollars. 



210 



1872 

Naples, June. — John has invited Aunt Ann Field, 
and James, his wife and me and Babe Abigail to 
come to England to make them a visit, and we 
expect to sail on the Baltic July sixth. 

On hoard SS. Baltic, July 7.— We left New 
York yesterday under favorable circumstances. It 
was a beautiful summer day, flags were flying and 
everything seemed so joyful we almost forgot we 
were leaving home and native land. There were 
many passengers, among them being Mr. and Mrs. 
Anthony Drexel and U. S. Grant, Jr., who boarded 
the steamer from a tug boat which came down the 
bay alongside when we had been out half an hour. 
President Grant was with him and stood on deck, 
smoking the proverbial cigar. We were glad to 
see him and the passengers gave him three cheers 
and three times three, with the greatest enthusiasm. 

Liverpool, July 16. — We arrived here to-day, 
having been just ten days on the voyage. There 
were many clergymen of note on board, among 
them, Rev. John H. Vincent, D.D., eminent in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, who is preparing In- 
ternational Sunday School lessons. He sat at our 

211 



212 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

table and Philip Phillips also, who is a noted evan- 
gelistic singer. They held services both Sabbaths, 
July 7 and 15, in the grand saloon of the steamer, 
and also in the steerage where the text was *' And 
they willingly received him into the ship." llie 
immigrants listened eagerly, when the minister 
urged them all to *' receive Jesus." We enjoyed 
several evening literary entertainments, when it was 
too cold or windy to sit (jn deck. 

We had tlie most luscious strawberries at dinner 
to-night, that I ever ate. So large and red and ripe, 
with the hulls on and we dipped them in powdered 
sugar as we ate them, a most appetizing way. 

London, July 1 7. — On our way to London to-day 
I noticed beautiful flower beds at every station, mak- 
ing our journey almost a path of roses. In the 
fields, men and women both, were harvesting the 
hay, making picturesque scenes, for the sky was 
cloudless and I was reminded of the old hymn, 
commencing 

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, 
Stand dressed in living green." 

We performed the journey from Liverpool to 
London, a distance of 240 miles, in five hours. 
John, Laura and little Pearl met us at Euston Sta- 
tion, and we were vSoon whirled away in cabs to 
24 Upper Woburn Place, Tavistock Square, John's 



1872I VlLLACiE LIKK IN AMERICA 213 

residence. Dinner was soon ready, a niosl bonnli- 
fnl rei)asl. We spent the remainder of the day 
visilinj^- and enjoyini;- ourselves i;enerally. It 
seemed so i^ood to be at the end of the jcjurney, 
allhoni^h v\ e had onl) two da)s »tf reahy nni)Ieasant 
weather on the voyai^c. Jolm and Eaura are so 
kind and hospitable. They ha\e a beautiful home, 
lo\ely children and apparently every comfort and 
luxury which this world can allord. 

Siiii(/ify, July 22. — \Ve went to S])ur^eon's Tal)er- 
nacle Ibis niorniuiL; lo listen to this i^reat t)rcacher, 
with (housands of others. 1 had ne\er looked upon 
such a sea of faces before, as I beheld from the i;al- 
lery where we sat. The puli)it was underneath one 
i^allery, so there seemed as many peoi)le oxer the 
preacher's head, as there were beneath and artnind 
him and the sini^inj^ was as impressive as the ser- 
mon. I thought of the hymn, " Mark ten thousand 
harps and voices, Sound the notes of praise above." 
Mr. SpurL;e(»n was so lame from rheumatism that 
he used two canes and placed one knee on a chair 
beside him, when preachin^!:;. I lis text was "And 
there shall be a new hea\ en and a new earth." I 
found that all 1 had heard of his elocjuence was true. 

[Siiudity, July -<)• — We hax'c spent the entire week 
si<;htseein^, takiui;- in llyde Tark, Windsor Castle, 
Westminster Abbey, St. I 'auks Cathedral, the 
Tower of London and liritish Museuni. We also 



214 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

went to Madame Tussaud's exhibition of wax fig- 
ures and while I was looking in the catalogue for 
the number of an old gentleman who was sitting 
down apparently asleep, he got up and w^alked away ! 
We drove to Sydenham ten miles from London, to 
see the Crystal Palace which Abbie called the 
" Christmas Palace." Mr. Alexander Howell and 
Mr. Henry Chesebro of Canandaigua are here and 
came to see us to-day. 

August 13. — Amid the whirl of visiting, shopping 
and sightseeing in this great city, my diary has been 
well nigh forgotten. The descriptive letters to 
home friends have been numerous and knowing that 
they would be preserved, I thought perhaps they 
would do as well for future reference as a diary 
kept for the same purpose, but to-day, as St. 
Pancras' bell was tolling and a funeral procession 
going by, we heard by cable of the death of our 
dear, dear Grandmother, the one who first encour- 
aged us to keep a journal of daily deeds, and who 
was always most interested in all that interested us 
and now I cannot refrain if I would, from writing 
down at this sad hour, of all the grief that is in my 
heart. I sorrow not for her. She has only stepped 
inside the temple-gate where she has long been wait- 
ing for the Lord's entrance call. I weep for our- 
selves that we shall see her dear face no more. It 
does not seem possible that we shall never see her 
again on this earth. She took such an interest in 



1872] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 215 

our journey and just as we started I put my dear 
little Abigail Beals Clarke in her lap to receive her 
parting blessing. As we left the house she sat at 
the front window and saw us go and smiled her 
farewell. 

August 20. — Anna has written how often Grand- 
mother prayed that '' He who holds the winds in his 
fists and the waters in the hollow of his hands, 
would care for us and bring us to our desired 
haven." She had received one letter, telling of our 
safe arrival and how much we enjoyed going about 
London, when she was suddenly taken ill and Dr. 
Hayes said she could never recover. Anna's letter 
came, after ten days, telling us all the sad news, and 
how Grandmother looked out of the window the 
last night before she was taken ill, and up at the 
moon and stars and said how beautiful they were. 
Anna says, '' How can I ever write it? Our dear 
little Grandmother died on my bed to-day." 

August 30. — John, Laura and their nurse and 
baby John, Aunt Ann Field and I started Tuesday 
on a trip to Scotland, going first to Glasgow where 
we remained twenty-four hours. We visited the 
Cathedral and were about to go down into the crypt 
when the guide told us that Gen. Sherman of U.S.A. 
was just coming in. We stopped to look at him 
and felt Hke telling him that we too w^ere Americans. 
He was in good health and spirits, apparently, and 



2i6 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

looked every inch a soldier with his cloak a-la-mili- 
taire around him. We visited the Lochs and spent 
one night at Inversnaid on Loch Lomond and then 
went on up Loch Katrine to the Trossachs. When 
we took the little steamer, John said, " All aboard 
for Naples," it reminded him so much of Canan- 
daigua Lake. We arrived safely in Edinburgh the 
next day by rail and spent four days in that charm- 
ing city, so beautiful in situation and in every 
natural advantage. We saw the window froni 
w^hence John Knox addressed the populace and we 
also visited the Castle on the hill. Then we went 
to Melrose and visited the Abbey and also Abbots- 
ford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott. We went 
through the rooms and saw many curios and paint- 
ings and also the library. Sir Walter's chair at 
his desk was protected by a rope, but Laura, nothing 
daunted, lifted the baby over it and seated him there 
for a moment saying '' I am sure, now, he will be 
clever." We continued our journey that night and 
arrived in London the next morning. 

Ventnor, Isle of Wight, September 9. — Aunt 
Ann, Laura's sister, Florentine Arnold, nurse and 
two children. Pearl and Abbie, and I are here for 
three weeks on the seashore. 

September 16. — We have visited all the neigh- 
boring towns, the graves of the Dairyman's daugh- 
ter and little Jane, the young cottager, and the scene 



1872] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 217 

of Leigh Richmoncrs life and labors. We have en- 
joyed bathing in the surf, and the children playing 
in the sands and riding on the donkeys. 

We have very pleasant rooms, in a house kept by 
an old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tuddenham, down on 
the esplanade. They serve excellent meals in a most 
homelike way. We have an abundance of delicious 
milk and cream which they tell me comes from 
" Cowes " ! 

London, September 30.— Anna has come to Eng- 
land to live with John for the present. She came 
on the Adriatic, arriving September 24. We are so 
glad to see her once more and will do all in our 
power to cheer her in her loneliness. 

Paris, October 18.— John, Laura, Aunt Ann and 
I, nurse and baby, arrived here to-day for a few 
days' visit. We had rather a stormy passage on 
the Channel. I asked one of the seamen the name 
of the vessel and he answered me '' The H'Albert 
H'Edward, Miss!" This information must have 
given me courage, for I was perfectly sustained till 
we reached Calais, although nearly every one around 
me succumbed. 

October 22. — We have driven through the Bois 
de Boulogne, visited Pere la Chaise, the Morgue, the 
ruins of the Tuileries, which are left just as they 
were since the Commune. We spent half a day at 



2i8 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

the Louvre without seeing half of its wonders. I 
went alone to a photographer's, Le Jeune, to be 
'' taken " and had a funny time. He queried 
'' Parlez-vous Frangais?" I shook my head and 
asked him *' Parlez-vous Anglaise?" at which 
query he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head ! 
I ventured to tell him by signs that I would like my 
picture taken and he held up two sizes of pictures 
and asked me '' Le cabinet, le vignette?" I held 
up my fingers, to tell him I would like six of each, 
whereupon he proceeded to make ready and when 
he had seated me, he made me understand that he 
hoped I would sit perfectly still, which I endeavored 
to do. After the first sitting, he showed displeasure 
and let me know that I had swayed to and fro. An- 
other attempt was more satisfactory and he said 
" Tres bien, Madame," and I gave him my address 
and departed. 

October 26. — My photographs have come and all 
pronounce them indeed " tres bien." We visited the 
Tomb of Napoleon to-day. 

October 2y. — We attended service to-day at the 
American Chapel and I enjoyed it more than I 
can ever express. After hearing a foreign tongue 
for the past ten days, it seemed like getting home to 
go into a Presbyterian church and hear a sermon 
from an American pastor. The singing in the 
choir w^as so homelike, that when they sang *' Awake 



1872] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 219 

my soul to joyful lays and sing thy great Redeem- 
er's praise," it seemed to me that I heard a well 
known tenor voice from across the sea, especially 
in the refrain " His loving kindness, oh how free." 
The text was " As an eagle stirreth up her nest, flut- 
tereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, 
taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the 
Lord did lead him and there was no strange God 
with him." Deut. 32:11. It was a wonderful 
sermon and I shall never forget it. On our way 
home, we noticed the usual traffic going on, building 
of houses, women were standing in their doors 
knitting and there seemed to be no sign of Sunday 
keeping, outside of the church. 

London, October 31. — John and I returned to- 
gether from Paris and now I have only a few days 
left before sailing for home. There was an Eng- 
lishman here to-day who was bragging about the 
beer in England being so much better than could be 
made anywhere else. He said, " In America, you 
have the 'ops, I know, but you haven't the Thames 
water, you know." I suppose that would make a 
vast difference! 

Sunday, November 3. — ^We went to hear Rev. Dr. 
Joseph Parker preach at Exeter Hall. He is a new 
light, comparatively, and bids fair to rival Spur- 
geon and Newman Hall and all the rest. He is 
like a lion and again like a lamb in the pulpit. 



220 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

Liverpool, Novcnihcr 6. — I came down to Liver- 
pool to-day with Abbie and nurse, to sail on the 
Baltic, to-morrow. There were two Englishmen 
in our compartment and hearing Abbie sing '' I have 
a Father in the Promised Land," they asked her 
where her Father lived and she said " In America,'' 
and told them she was going on the big ship to- 
morrow to see him. Then they turned to me and 
said they supposed I would be glad to know that the 
latest cable from America was that U. S. Grant 
was elected for his second term as President of the 
United States. 1 assured them that I was very glad 
to hear such good news. 

November 9. — I did not know any of the passen- 
gers when we sailed, but soon made pleasant ac- 
quaintances. Near me at table are Mr. and Mrs. 
Sykes from New York and in course of conversa- 
tion I found that she as well as myself, was born 
in Penn Yan, Yates County, New York, and that 
her parents were members of my Father's church, 
which goes to prove that the world is not so very 
wide after all. Abbie is a great pet among the pas- 
sengers and is being passed around from one to 
another from morning till night. They love to 
hear her sing and coax her to say '' Grace " at table. 
She closes her eyes and folds her hands devoutly 
and says, " For what we are about to receive, may 
the Lord make us truly thankful." They all 
say " Amen " to this, for they are fearful that 



1872] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 221 

they will not perhaps be " thankful " when they 
finish ! 

November 15. — I have been on deck every day 
but one, and not missed a single meal. There was a 
terrible storm one night and the next morning I told 
one of the numerous clergymen, that I took great 
comfort in the night, thinking that nothing could 
happen with so many of the Lord's anointed, on 
board. He said that he wished he had thought of 
that, for he was frightened almost to death ! We 
have sighted eleven steamers and on Wednesday we 
w^ere in sight of the banks of Newfoundland all the 
afternoon, our course being unusually northerly and 
we encountered no fogs, contrary to the expecta- 
tion of all. Every one pronounces the voyage pleas- 
ant and speedy for this time of year. 

Naples, N. Y., November 20. — We arrived safely 
in New York on Sunday. Abbie spied her father 
very quickly upon the dock as wt slowly came up 
and with glad and happy hearts we returned his 
'' Welcome home." We spent two days in New 
York and arrived home safe and sound this 
evening. 

November 21. — My thirtieth birthday, which we, 
a reunited family, are spending happily together 
around our own fireside, pleasant memories of the 
past months adding to the joy of the hour. 



222 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

From the New York Evangelist of August 15, 
1872, by Rev. Samuel Pratt, D.D. 

'' Died, at Canandaigua, N. Y., August 8, 1872, 
Mrs. Abigail Field Beals, widow of Thomas Beals, 
in the 89th year of her age. Mrs. Beals, whose 
maiden name was Field, was born in Madison, 
Conn., April 7, 1784. She was a sister of Rev. 
David Dudley Field, D.D., of Stockbridge, Mass., 
and of Rev. Timothy Field, first pastor of the Con- 
gregational church of Canandaigua. She came to 
Canandaigua with her brother, Timothy, in 1800. 
In 1805 she was married to Thomas Beals, Esq., 
with whom she lived nearly sixty years, until he 
fell asleep. They had eleven children, of whom 
only four survive. In 1807 she and her husband 
united with the Congregational church, of which 
they were ever liberal and faithful supporters. Mrs. 
Beals loved the good old ways and kept her house 
in the simple and substantial style of the past. She 
herself belonged to an age of which she was the 
last. With great dignity and courtesy of manner 
which repelled too much familiarity, she combined 
a sweet and winning grace, which attracted all to 
her, so that the youth, while they would almost 
involuntarily ' rise up before her,' yet loved to be in 
her presence and called her blessed. She possessed 
in a rare degree the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit and lived in an atmosphere of love and peace. 
Her home and room were to her children and her 



1872] VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA 223 

children's children what Jerusalem was to the saints 
of old. There they loved to resort and the saddest 
thing in her death is the sundering of that tie which 
bound so many generations together. She never 
ceased to take a deep interest in the prosperity of 
the beautiful village of which she and her husband 
were the pioneers and for which they did so much 
and in the church of which she was the oldest mem- 
ber. Her mind retained its activity to the last and 
her heart was warm in sympathy with every good 
work. While she was well informed in all current 
events, she most delighted in whatever concerned 
the Kingdom. Her Bible and religious books were 
her constant companions and her conversation told 
much of her better thoughts, which were in Heaven. 
Living so that those who knew her never saw in 
her anything but fitness for Heaven, she patiently 
awaited the Master's call and went down to her 
grave in a full age like a shock of corn fully ripe that 
Cometh in its season." 

I don't think I shall keep a diary any more, only 
occasionally jot down things of importance. Mr. 
Noah T. Clarke's brother got possession of my little 
diary in some way one day and when he returned it 
I found written on the fly-leaf this inscription to 
the diary : 



" You'd scarce expect a volume of my size 
To hold so much that's beautiful and wise, 



224 VILLAGE LIFE IN AMERICA [1872 

And though the heartless world might call me cheap 
Yet from my pages some much joy shall reap. 
As monstrous oaks from little acorns grow, 
And kindly shelter all who toil below, 
So my future greatness and the good I do 
Shall bless, if not the world, at least a few." 

I think I will close my old journal with the mot- 
toes which I find upon an old well-worn waiting 
book which Anna used for jotting down her youth- 
ful deeds. On the cover I find inscribed, " Try to 
be somebody," and on the back of the same book, as 
if trying to console herself for unexpected achieve- 
ment which she could not prevent, " Some must be 
great ! " 



i88o 

June ly. — Our dear Anna was married to-day to 
Mr. Alonzo A. Cummings of Oakland, Cal., and has 
gone there to live. I am sorry to have her go so far 
away, but love annihilates space. There is no real 
separation, except in alienation of spirit, and that 
can never come — to us. 



THE END 



«25 



BOOKS TO MAKE ELDERS YOUNG AGAIN 
By Inez Haynes Gillmore 

PHOEBE AND ERNEST 

With 30 illustrations by R. F. Schabelitz. $1.35 net. 

Parents will recognize themselves in the story, and laugh 
understandingly with, and sometimes at, Mr. and Mrs. Martin 
and their children, Phoebe and Ernest. 

" Attracted delighted attention in the course of its serial publication. 
Sentiment and humor are deftly mingled in this clever book." — New 
York Tribune. 

" We must go back to Louisa Alcott for their equals." — Boston Ad- 
vertiser. 

" For young and old alike we know of no more refreshing story." — 
New York Evening Post. 

PHOEBE, ERNEST, AND CUPID 

Illustrated by R. F. Schabelitz. $1.35 net. 

In this sequel to the popular "Phoebe and Ernest," each 

of these delightful young folk goes to the altar. 

"To all jaded readers of problem novels, to all weary wayfarers on the 
rocky literary road of social pessimism and domestic woe, we recommend 
' Phoebe. Ernest, and Cupid ' with all our hearts : it is not only cheerful, it's 
true."— A'. V. Times Review. 

"Wholesome, merry, absolutely true to life."— 7""A^ Outlook. 
"All delicious— humorous and true." —The Continent. 

"Irresistibly fascinating. Mrs. Gillmore knows twice as much about 
college boys as . and five times as much about ziT\^."—Bosto7t Globe. 

JANEY 

Illustrated by Ada C. Williamson, $1.25 net. 
" Being the record of a short interval in the journey thru 
life and the struggle with society of a little girl of nine." 

" Our hearts were captive to ' Phoebe and Ernest,' and now accept 
' Janey.' . . . She is so engaging. . . . Told so vivaciously and 
with such good-natured and pungent asides for grown people." — 
Outlook. 

" Depicts youthful human nature as one who knows and loves it. 
Her * Phoebe and Ernest ' studies are deservedly popular, and now, in 
' Janey,' this clever writer has accomplished an equally charming por- 
trait." — Chicago Record-Herald. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



NOTABLE MUSICAL NOVELS 

Romain RoUand b JEAN-CHRISTOPHE 

(Dawn — Morning — Youth — Revolt.) Translated by Gilbert 
Cannan. The romance of a musician. $1.50 net. 

" The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or 
from any other European country, in a decade. . . . Highly com- 
mendable and effective translation . . . the story moves at a rapid 
pace. It never lags." — Boston Transcript. 

Romain RoUand's JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS 

(The Market Place — Antoinette — The House.) $1.50 net. 

" A masterpiece of a new day. . . . Rolland's great novel . . . ex- 
traordinary quality- . . . the most profound and comprehensive criticism 
of modern life. By no means a book for the fev alone; many readers 
will find it stimulating and suggestive." — Springfield Republican. 

Romain Rolland's JEAN-CHRISTOPHE: JOURNEY'S END 

Including Love and Friendship — The Bunv ' ' — "" New 
Dawn. $1.50 net. 

The Londor Times, in reviewing the French crig:na. ssys "Hol- 
land in the full force of his personality . . . that unexampled force 
and tenderness ir the delineation of passion or sentiment. . . . The 
first part is a tale of revolution. . . . Jean-Christophe kills a French 
policeman and he is obliged to fiy for his life into Switzerland. The 
story of Jean-Christophe between Dr. Braun and his wife is pretty much 
the stor\' of Tristan and Isolde." 

W. J. Henderson's THE SOUL OF A TENOR 

A romance by the author of "The Story of Music'' "The 
Art of the Singer." " Some Forerunners - - — 
Opera." With frontispiece in color bv Geoi 
$1.35 net. 
In this romance, altho it passes largely in the MetropoHtan 

Opera House, New York, the characters are purely imaginar}^ 

" The reader is taken behind the scenes at performances and re- 
hearsals and into the dressing rooms and the boudoirs of the artistes; 
into the cafes, where foreign singers congregate. . . . And while 
absorbing all this information, gathering these impressions, and realiz- 
ing the truth of them all. is introduced to a number of characters, 
whose careers form a superlatively dramatic narrative ... a really 
great novel." — Times Review. 

"Interesting ir many ways. . . . Extremely bright. . . . Nagy 
is a brilliant creation — an artist and a musician to her finger tips. . . . 
The other opera people are all alive. ... A storj' that every one can 
enjoy. . . . The sly hits he makes at humbugs of all kinds." — New 
York Sun. 

HENRY KOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



DOROTHY CANFIELD'S THE SQUIRREL-CAGE 

Illustrated by J. A. Williams. 4th printing. $1.35 net 
This is, first of all, an unusually personal and real story of 
.American family life. 

" One has no hesitation in classing ' The Squirrei-Cage ' with the 
best American fiction of this or any season. Regarded merely as a 
realistic story of social ambitions in a typical Ohio town, it has all 
the elements of diversity, feeling, style, characterization and plot to 
captivate almost any member of that large and growing public which 
knows vital fiction from brummagem- The author has a movine story 
to tell, and with a calm, sure art she tells it by stirring our "sympa'- 
thies for the singularly appealing heroine. The characters are ail 
alive, well contrasted, wonderfully grouped." — Chicago Record-Herald. 

" She brings her chief indictment against the restiess ambition of the 
American business man. and the purposeless and emDt\- life of the 
American wife. . . . The story of a young girl's t^owerlessness to 
resist the steady pressure of convention." — Bookman. 

" A remarkable story of .American life to-day, worth reading and 
worth pondering. . . . Her book is. first of all, a storv, and a' sood 
one throughout" — N'ew York Tribune. 

BEULAH .MARIE DIX'S THE HGHTING BLADE 

By the author of "' The Making of Christopher Ferringham," 
" Alhson's Lad." etc. With frontispiece bv "" 
Variax. 3rd printing. $1.30 net. 

The " fighting blade"' is a quiet, bovish German iciciicr 
serving Cromwell, who. though a deadly duehst. is at bottom 
heroic and seif-sacriiicmg. He loves a little tombov Rovalist 
heiress. 

-War York Tribune. — ■' Lovers of this kind of fiction will fi.nd here all 
that they can desire of plot and danger and daring, of desperate en- 
counters, capture and hiding and escape, and of nascent !ove amid the 
alarums of war, and it is all of excellent quality."* 

Chicago Inter-Ocean.— ''The best historical romance the man who 
writes these lines has read in half a dozen years. . . . The heroine is 
a dear maid and innocent, yet nowise sweetish or tamely conven- 
tional. . . . The story's hero ... is certainly as fi.ne a specimen of 
fighting manhood (with a gentle heart) as ever has been out before 
us. . . . He lives, mind you. he's wholly natural. . . . Oliver Cromwell 
makes a brief appearance, but a striking one. . . . Some of the minor 
characters . . . are as well drawn. . . . From the beginning , . 
until 'he very ?nd the story holds the reader's giad. intimate interest." 



HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE 

American and English (1580-1912) 
Compiled by Burton E. Stevenson. Collects the best short 
poetry of the English language— not only the poetry every- 
body says is good, but also -the verses that everybody 
reads. _ (3742 pages ; India paper, i vol., 8vo, complete au- 
thor, title and first line indices, $7.50 net ; carriage 40 cents 
extra.) 

The most comprehensive and representative collection of 
American and English poetry ever published, including 
3,120 unabridged poems from some 1,100 authors. 

It brings together in one volume the best short poetry 
of the English language from the time of Spencer, with 
especial attention to American verse. 

The copyright deadline has been passed, and some three 
hundred recent authors are included, very few of whom 
appear in any other general anthology, such as Lionel 
Johnson. Noyes, Housman, Mrs. Meynell, Yeats, Dobson, 
Lang, Watson, Wilde, Francis Thompson, Gilder, Le 
Gallienne, Van Dyke. Woodberry, Riley, etc.. etc. 

The poems as arranged by subject, and the classifica- 
tion is unusually close and searching. Some of the most 
comprehensive sections are: Children's rhymes (300 
pages); love poems (800 pages); nature poetry (400 
pages); humorous verse (500 pages); patriotic and histor- 
ical poems (600 pages) ; reflective and descriptive poetry 
(400 pages). No other collection contains so many popu- 
lar favorites and fugitive verses. 

~ DELIGHTFUL POCKET ANTHOLOGIES 

The following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible covers and 
pictured cover linings. i6mo. Each, cloth, $1.50; leather, $2.50. 



THE GARLAND OF CHILDHOOD 

A little book for all lovers of 
children. Compiled by Percy 
Withers. 

THK VISTA OF ENGLISH VZRSE 

Compiled by Henry S. Pan- 
coast. From Spencer to Kip- 
ling. 

LETTERS THAT LIVE 

Compiled by Laura E. Lock- 
wood and Amy R. Kelly. Some 
150 letters. 

POEMS FOR TRAVELLERS 

(About "The Continent.") 
Compiled by Miss Mary R. J. 



THE OPEN ROAD 

A little book for wayfarers. 
Compiled by E. V. Lucas. 

THE FRIENDLY TOWN 



A little 
compiled 



book 
by E. 



for 



the urbane, 
Lucas, 



THE POETIC OLD-WORLD 

Compiled by Miss L. H. 
Humphrey. Covers Europe, in- 
cluding Spain, Belgium and th» 
British Isles. 



THE POETIC NEW- WORLD 

Compiled by Miss Humphrey. 



HENRY HOLT AND 

34 WEST 33rd street 



COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



New Books Primarily for Women 



A MONTESSORI MOTHER. By Dorothy CanReld Fisher 

A thoroly competent author who has been most closely 
associated with Dr. Montessori tells just what American moth- 
ers want to know about this new system of child training — the 
general principles underlying it; a plain description of the 
apparatus, definite directions for its use, suggestive hints as 
to American substitutes and additions, etc., etc. {Helpfully 
illustrated. $1.25 net, by mail $1.35.) 

MAKING A BUSINESS WOMAN. hy Anne Shannon Monroe 

A young woman whose business assets are good sense, 
good health, and the ability to use a typewriter goes to 
Chicago to earn her living. This story depicts her experi- 
ences vividly and truthfully, tho the characters are fictitious. 
($1.30 net, by mail %\./\o^ 

WHY WOMEN ARE SO. By Mary R. Coolidge 

Explains and traces the development of the woman of iSoo 
into the woman of to-day. ($1.50 net, by mail $1.62.) 

THE SQUIRREL-CAGE. By Dorothy CanReld 

A novel recounting the struggle of an American wife and 
another to call her soul her own. 

"One has no hesitation in classing 'The Squirrel-Cage' with the best 
American fiction of this or any other season."— CHICAGO Record- 
Herald. {2,rd printing. %i.2,S net, by fnail %i.^s.) 

HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS. By C.B.Davenport 

"One of the foremost authorities . . . tells just what scientific 
investigation has established and how far it is possible to control what 
the ancients accepted as inevitable."— N. Y. TIMES Review. 

{With diagrams. 2^ d printing. %2.oq) net, by mail %2.\b.) 

THE GLEAM. By Helen R. Albee 

A frank spiritual autobiography. ($1.35 net, by 7nail%i.^<s.) 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

34 West 33D Street NEW YORK 



LEADING AMERICANS 

Edited by W. P. Trent, and generally confined to those no 

longer living. Large i2mo. With portraits. 

Each $1 75, by mail $1.90. 

R. M. JOHNSTON'S LEADING AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

By the Author of " Napoleon," etc. 
Washington, Greene. Taylor, Scott, Andrew Jackson, Grant, 
Sherman, Sheridan, McClellan, Meade, Lee, "Stonewall" 
Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston. 

" Very interesting . . . much sound originality of treatment, and the 
style is very clear." — Springfield Republican. 

JOHN ERSKINE'S LEADING AMERICAN NOVELISTS 

Charles Brockden Brown, Cooper, Simms, Hawthorne, 
Mrs. Stowe, and Bret Harte. 

" He makes his study of these novelists all the more striking because 
of their contrasts of style and their varied purpose. . . . Well worth 
any amount of time we may care to spend upon them." — Boston Tran- 
script. 

W. M. PAYNE'S LEADING AMERICAN ESSAYISTS 

A General Introduction dealing with essay writing in Amer- 
ica, and biographies of Irving, Emerson, Thoreau, and George 
William Curtis. 

" It is necessary to know only the name of the author of this work 
to be assured of its literary excellence." — Literary Digest. 

LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 

Edited by President David Starr Jordan. 
Count Rumford and Tosiah Willard Gibbs, by E. E. Slosson; 
Alexander Wilson and Audubon, by Witmer Stone; Silliman, by 
Daniel C. Gilman; Joseph Henry, by Simon Newcomb; Louis Agassiz 
and Spencer Fullerton Baird, by Charles F. Holder; Jeffries Wyman, 
by B. G. Wilder; Asa Gray, by John M. Coulter; James Dwight Dana, 
by William North Rice; Marsh, by Geo. Bird Grinnell; Edward 
Drinker Cope, by Marcus Benjamin; Simon Newcomb, by Marcus 
Benjamin; George Brown Goode, by D. S. Jordan; Henry Augustus 
Rowland, by Ira Remsen; William Keith Brooks, by E. A. Andrews. 

GEORGE ILES'S LEADING AMERICAN INVENTORS 

By the author of " Inventors at Work," etc. Colonel John Stevens 
(screw-propeller, etc.); his son, Robert (T-rail, etc.); Fulton; Erics- 
son; Whitney; Blanchard (lathe); McCormick; Howe; Goodyear; 
Morse; Tilghman (paper from wood and sand blast); Siioles (type, 
writer); and Mergenthaler (linotype). 

Other Volumes covering Lawyers, Poets, Statesmen, 
Editors, Explorers, etc. , arranged for. Leaflet on application. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS (ix'ia) NEW YORK 



RECENT FICTION 

JuHen Bcnda's THE YOKE OF PITY 

The author grips and never lets go of the single theme 
(which presents itself more or less acutely to many people) — 
the duel between a passionate devotion to a career and the 
claims of love, pity, and domestic responsibility. 

"The novel of the winter in Paris. Certainly the novel of the year— 
the book which everyone reads and discusses."— 7/;^ London Times. 
$1.00 net. 

Victor L. Whitechurch'8 A DOWNLAND CORNER 

By the author of The Canon in Residence. 

"One of those delightful studies in quaintness which we take to heart 
and carry in the pocket."— iVeu; York Times. $1.20 net. 

H. H. Bashford's PITY THE POOR BLIND 

The story of a young English couple and an Anglican priest. 
The title refers to blindness regarding God and His laws. 
$1.35 net 

John Matter's THREE FARMS 

An "adventure in contentment" in France, Northwestern 
Canada and Indiana. 

"A rare combination of philosophy and humor. The most remarkable 
part of this book is the wonderful atmosphere of content which radiates 
from it."— Boston Transcript. $1.20 net. 

Dorothy Canfield's THE SQUIRREL-CAGE 

A very human story of the struggle of an American wife 
and mother to call her soul her own. 4th printing. Illustrated 
by J. A. Williams, 

"One has no hesitation in classing The Squirrel Cage with the best 
American fiction of this or any season." — Chicago Record-Herald. $1.35 



HENRY HOLT and COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS (v'13) NEW YORK 



STANDARD CONTEMPORARY NOVELS 

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE 

The story of a great sacrifice and a lifelong love. Over 
fourteen printings. $1.75. 
*** List of Mr. De Morgan's other novels sent on application. 

PAUL LEICESTER FORD'S THE HON. PETER STIRLING 

This famous novel of New York political life has gone 
through over fifty impressions. $1.50. 

ANTHONY HOPE'S PRISONER OF ZENDA 

This romance of adventure has passed through over sixty 
impressions. With illustrations by C. D. Gibson. $1.50. 

ANTHONY HOPE'S RUPERT OF HENTZAU 

This story has been printed over a score of times. With 
illustrations by C. D. Gibson. $1.50. 

ANTHONY HOPE'S DOLLY DIALOGUES 

Has passed through over eighteen printings. With illustra- 
tions by H. C. Christy. $1.50" 

CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS'S CHEERFUL AMERICANS 

By the author of " Poe's Raven in an Elevator" and "A 
HolidayTouch." With 24 illustrations. Tenth printing. $1,25. 

MAY SINCLAIR'S THE DIVINE FIRE 

By the author of " The Helpmate," etc. Fifteenth printing. 
$1.50. 

BURTON E. STEVENSON'S MARATHON MYSTERY 

This mystery story of a New York apartment house is 
now in its seventh printing, has been republished in England 
and translated into German and Italian. With illustrations 
in color, $1.50. 

E. L. VOYNICH'S THE GADFLY 

An intense romance of the Italian uprising against the 
Austrians. Twenty-third edition. $1.25. 

DAVID DWIGHT WELLS'S HER LADYSHIP'S ELEPHANT 

With cover by Wm. Nicholson. Eighteenth printing. $1.25. 

C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR 

Over thirty printings. $1.50. 

C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON'S THE PRINCESS PASSES 

Illustrated by Edward Penfield. Eighth printing. $1.50. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS (iv'12) NEW YORK 



Al'^G 8 1913 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




ilMil 

014 222 261 9 



